Lessons from foreign gods: Melia

Melia sits, sister
priestess in her
wooden box.

Confess,
her branches rasp,
and with a scratch
she bleeds me ashen,
taking my sins.

Forgiveness
comes as the honey
she drips back to me.

Lessons from foreign gods: Atë

Atë ate
eight lives
lives she hated
living
and living
hateful lives
ate at her
until her
lithe feet
lithely footed
eight fated heads
heads having at it
with each other
and with
a havoc
the Litae
not so lithe
couldn’t stop
nor Atë and her
appetite for
bloodletting them
their lives.

Stones

Lately, simple stones have taken on
the heft of enormous boulders.

It could be that our gravity has changed,
or that these rocks are newly made
of a matter with greater density.

I'm ever an enthusiast
for Greek myth, its stories penned far away
in fertile fields of elites bred
from the straying loins of finely flawed gods.

That's what I tell most, but I couldn't
tell you any details about twelve labors,
monsters taken, torn asunder.

Hercules must have shouldered his burdens,
I imagine, froth at the mouth,
drawing on his inner strength to support
the brunt of a weighty world's cares.

Or was that Atlas? The question may be
moot, examining my own thighs.

— Francis Scudellari

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This poem is written in response to Read Write Prompt #109: beg, borrow, steal at Read Write Poem. This was a "wordle" prompt, click on the first link to see the 13 suggested words.

Io, Mid-transformation

This is the second illustration I've done for my poem Argus & Io. It depicts the nymph Io as both woman and cow. I like the way I interpreted her bovine side much better.

Argus & Io: The watcher foiled

Continuing on, this is the penultimate part of my latest poem. I hope to have it completed within the next few days.

Argus & Io
By Francis Scudellari

III.

He
a-fog
spies early
morning ride in
rosy on curled backs
of a low-rising mist
pushed by one errand-
spelling breeze's
deceitful
lyrics
blow-
whispered
to drowse with
threaded tunes spun
by humming needle-
sharp leaves, olive clatter
drummed as owning twigs
knock, lulling shut
his hundred
eyes, close-
kept
charge loosed
in whiting
flash, thunder's clap
and Argus quick-caught
by writ-mischief's lean hands
foiling-wrapped within
tight, re-coiled tales
his never
slipping
free

Argus & Io, Part One

This is the first part of my new poem inspired by another classical myth. To read a little background on the story that informed it, check out the Wikipedia article on Argus Panoptes (all-seeing Argus).

Argus and Io
By Francis Scudellari

I.

He
put on
cocky watch
towering stands,
long-reaching throws off
shadows of square-cut limbs
loose-draped in rough skin
to guard against
dawn's thick air
creeping,
chilled
his own
flagging strength
braced by sipped fire
sharpening fifty
paired eyes that monstrous ring
his still, uncrowned head
each visited
by just one
moment's
sleep
well-timed
in rolling
blinked-lid cascade
to stop-frame project
scenes from dewy-green fields
keeping a beast for
the jealousy
of too quick-
fading
robes

Not letting a sleeping poem lie

This is the latest poem I'm working on. I may yet make some minor changes to it. It jumped the queue, as my pieces sometimes do, past the poem I alluded to a couple posts back. It's an invention with no particular inspiration, just vague impressions that had been floating about my imagination.

These recurring deaths
By Francis Scudellari

These recurring deaths brought down by
drowsing shade, Hypnos who nightly
stalks him, catches him, carries him
away to puzzle-piece landscapes;
odd bits jammed together, seeming
crudely fit with hasty fingers...

Time again dropped 'neath paint-smear sky:
purple-black dotted with pink-white.
A speckled canvas further smudged
by thick-limbed clouds that hover over
claw-hammer trees, screw-top bushes;
hills' sparse stubble he stumbles through...

As he chases familiar shapes,
shifting glimpses of strange beings;
their vaguely human faces topped
with twisted horn or ragged mane;
misshapen escorts who lead him
across rock shoulders, mossy backs...

Toward a close-cropped clearing where,
gathered with shepherding eyes, they
watch him, welcome him, offer him
sips from stick-carved ladles and spoons
they dip deep in green, soupy streams
to coax him to forgetfulness...

Weak-willed, he drinks serenaded
by an elemental chorus;
some airy, some hot, some mildewed,
all mismatched voices borne aloft
on ancient tongues whose wings beat
a steady pulse, that brings him back ...

To panderer clock's up-swept hands
pushing the rhythmic details of
a new waked sun's rosy allure;
her plying whispers that draw out
his sharp-splinter want for a day
when evening's pause never ends.

Poetically pondering fate and transparency

Here is my latest poem, a day later than I planned. Circumstance and a mild virus conspired against me. As always, feedback and constructive criticism are much appreciated. This came together pretty quickly once I settled on the Three Fates motif (with thanks to Alicia for that inspiration).

Transparent (To Alicia)
by Francis Scudellari

Her life on a spindle,
slowly spins out, into
a too delicate thread;
knowing if not caring
hands weave in odd patterns
to make a broader cloth.
They bleach it, bony white.
They stretch it, transparent.
They dab it, fine-dust it
with mixed pigment palette--
butterfly-wing powders,
a bright-hue camouflage.

Over measured, hungry
days, rude visitors come.
They bump, up against her.
They feel, to fill a lack.
They smudge, her covering tints;
continue on, smugly
clap fatty hands, to rid
themselves of rubbed-off bits;
her color haphazard
pilfered now, then carried
off on indiff'rent breeze--
whorled wisp, smoky sparkling.

In sunset's cutting hour,
Atropos' polished blades
casting an orange light,
she senses herself fade
to too pale shade, the years
of so many touches
leaving a lone, small speck--
a bluish smear. She waits,
still, so unsure, whether
to fear the next visit
or hope, to meet that fate,
who puts the colors back?