Pluto's Wife/ Demeter's
Daughter
Persephone, your will is
free
Even as your living is in
bondage
to forces much older in their
power
You are free to reconcile your
fractured life
Daughter in Summer's sun
smiling warmly, playing at
innocence
with charms long
practiced
Mother's Fool
Mother's Lamb
Saved from that horrible man
--
Well, joint custody
Ever Her beloved child
While it is no secret
Down below you are honored
Queen
among tortured souls ever needy of
your
attentive care
Far from noblesse oblige, it is
your
chosen career, though not chosen by
you
Are you told enough:
"You do it proud." or even
acknowledged
for the prowess your will gives
existence?
Free Will, not Free
Choice
It is learning to make of the whole
sad cacophony
discrete instruments of harmony, of
divine symphony
to find, realize, act
with
impeccable integrity
as child or Queen
or someone between
Persephone's Worlds
I have wandered far from thoughtless
girlhood,
am woman grown, a Queen
in my own right.
Yet I am treated with the
expectations
of a mindless child
in my mother's Summer
home.
The Gods are all agog with
Zeus,
fickle, abrasive, free to take full
stance
above the laws he so imperiously
commands.
My Dark King is so much more a
man,
sincere, deeply feeling, committed to
his realm,
compassionate, if not always
kind.
Yet, this season I must obey the
crowd,
display charm and grace
in haute couture, make small,
insipid
conversation with useless
socialites
decorating Zeus' lawn
parties.
Up here, life is meaningless,
All flash and doggerel
to amuse, O', do entertain
us.
So tiring to endure the
ennui.
Those not privy to opulent
entitlement,
relegated to the dregs of servitude,
or less
endure for their time, brutal,
painful, short,
for no good reason.
I hear their horrid tales,
back in my rightful place and
purpose.
Shrunken souls, shriveled by life
time hungers
still growling beyond the
grave.
I am balm and wise
mother.
At last they matter, their stories
opening in me
a marvelous passageway through which
they are
taken into paradise.
My life above, the petulant
daughter,
the pampered goddess
spawn,
I endure coldly.
Summer's trivialities, properly
obedient to
rituals of social
condition,
know nothing of my true
calling
under Winter's glory.
Persephone's
Breakthrough
This is where the idea is
born.
Soft green meadows gently
transforming into fall
Sounds of dying, scent of woodfire
and candlelight
No separation between what is
becoming
Accept and be revealed
Summer's wild adventures
Spring was a torrent of clarity,
precious rain,
Earth coarse, ready for fecund
pleasure
Queen of night in daylight's
realm
obsessed in flowering
roses and daffodils
valleys and nubile hills
all is vanity and laughing
vice
"But, Mother, I'm not a nice
girl.
I'm a creature of the breeze; secure
in shadow;
alive on the cutting edge of the
storm."
Myth in revision
Standing at the back of the
playground
learning theater, tucking
metaphors
into interstices of sense and
anticipation
In spring, kicking stones along sandy
riverbeds
reading the classics
to savor practice: valor, glory,
dramatic lines
Summer deceives
the stink of rot where flowers
bloom
ancient feuds, retaliations,
rage
tyrannosaurus feeding future
waste,
absorbing a zeitgeist of want, of
predation
Within greed-swollen seed infectious
fear
makes merry with misery’s
habit
Mythology frustrates, curls back on
its own ash
Eyes burn with hazy summer wine and
wilding
Feet connect dust to sky -- but only
in designated
spheres, with designated peers,
self-selected inhibitions
Sweat out poison into the ground;
now, eat the bounty
Midsummer farce, far from honor, far
from sunrise,
counting out the chimes as if time
were treasure
Silly summer madness as if what
matters
is so circumscribed, so
predictable
Early autumn firelight
reminiscent of witch hunts, ghosts of
calvary,
dire warnings and endless hide and
strike
The game, the funhouse, turns
deadly
Sanctuary calls, demanding
sacrifice
The noble phoenix fed on
frankenseed
can not rise
Skies descend, dark
mirroring
Smell the woodsmoke, intoxicating,
soft and sweet,
masks the taste of bitter bile,
secret vomiting,
starving despite harvest's gay array
of treats
Faded, nearly blind, falling in and
out of
shamanic fever, primeval native
callings beyond sight,
ripple of tribal beat at the
periphery
ecstatic vision dark/light/agony and
brilliant breaks
starbright
constellations
Traversing worlds
seasons, years, moments of
clarity
no need to navigate, to invent
boundaries;
dance of the highlands warmth and
sustenance
permeates
makes whole
Approaching Winter
Twinkling lights. I remember
twinkling,
clouds resplendent awaiting
snowfall.
It's Persephone's season
below,
growing in power,
regality.
Friend to post-living
souls,
hearing their stories,
sharing her own,
from the above time.
Flitting about,
we hum comforting
phrases,
sweat anxiously in crowded
malls
over inner demands for a
never
remembered perfection.
Children standing in awe
below
magnificence of glowing giant
trees.
Cities return to primal
forest
for an imaginary
interval.
We recount ourselves our stories,
pray Santa finds us
worthy
of that shiny plaything that
will
make us all right, make us
happy.
Happy little children, so
Mama
and Papa might be proud,
stop fighting,
sing us happy children
holidays,
take us back to the
Garden.
Deep below, Persephone
combs
her loosened hair, long
tangly
root
core
essence.
Magical petals of bliss, succulent
aroma,
blow about within the Garden
walls.
Perennial flowers sleep, blanketed
in
millennial layers,
reverberations of
legends,
plotlines thick with arboreal
lore.
Snowflakes twinkle, lightly
falling,
drape long-growing trees
peacefully awaiting their
Queen.
My Pet Goddess
We ride creative waves.
Chaste Goddess child, frisky
muse
picks daisies, pilfers beehives.
Sweet as to please
deities craving
for innocence.
Secret games whisk us
to deep intimacy.
Supernatural companion,
she
comforts me, familiar with
these
cycles of light and dark
responsibility --
cosmic irony.
Mother's reward.
Father's Hetaera.
Beloved of mordant
Destiny.
Beguiling affection, she
cuddles
into my simple, abyssal
fears.
She licks the eyelids of
my
inner vision, coaxes me
open.
Together we transcend
hierarchy,
frolic
dimensions between.
imaginary workshop for re-creation
myths new and revisioned
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