Young ephebe lies in
shallow fever dream;
slave dampens his brow
with cloth soaked in cool
water blest by saints
of wise Apollo.
But beneath it all,
in the realm that is
all his, the secret
territory, the
dark place, subconscious,
many creatures lurk.
Clearly of the past,
they clamber forth from
vague, dreary hollows;
they haunt and rip and
scream; they call for him;
their pleas penetrate.
They reach almost to
bronzed flesh, sweat-soaked, but
liniments protect
his frail mortal form.
They relentlessly
demand repentance.
Sins dance underneath
heavy lids and burn
impressions of night
horrors sent from depths
of black River Styx
to tell him of truth.
"Your past belongs to
you! your future us;
Truth is redemption.
Hubris unpunished
is undeserving
of Elysium."
He learns lessons well,
death-rattle shrieking
repentance into
the recesses of
fleeting consciousness
as he slips away.
Atropos' icy
glare sends chills down his
spine as sensation
ceases; now she will
grant mercy most swift
to the young ephebe.
Author notes
This is mostly a study in pentameter for me, my first try at any sort of form poetry.
*forty-two*
A contest entry
- ANYTHING! Seriously ANYTHING! by A Murderous Lament.
390 points, ended April 2, 2007, 75 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
The last stanza is not okay. It needs fixing.
Comments
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Intriguing
This is really interesting--I can see a mix of "Christian" words with Greek mythology. "Sin" and "saints", things usually associated with the church, are now pagan and related to the parthenon, which is really, really cool. I've been reading a lot of poetry dealing with Greek mythology lately (british romantics loved it, apparently), but this is really different, really unique from that. It actually has something to say, a story to tell.
I love the imagery in the 2nd stanza--the pale skin against the "burn[ing] impressions"--which seems red, or hot to me. Contrasted with the black river, its really vivid.
The only thing about the last stanza I dont like is how weird "grant mercy must swift" sounds. It sounds like there should be a few more words, or some puncutation or something in there. I'm guessing you want to fix the ending lines? You could mention the "thread of life" or something like that, or just play around with the mercy part, or add something before "the young ephebe".
I guess I'd like to know more about ephebe. Maybe I'm just mythologically stupid, but this poem makes me really interested to know what happened before the moments of death.
You are such a great writer, Ross. This is awesome--seriously. It's got great imagery and description, an interesting "plot"...an interesting flow. When you fix/edit it, let me know, because I definately want to see the end result.
Great work! Thanks for sharing!
~blessings~
~rora
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Ooops! Typo! I meant to type "grant mercy most swift." I'll fix that posthaste.
I'm tempted to use the word "thrashing" in a poem, so I'll most likely write something further about this young ephebe! I hadn't considered that before. Yay you!
Yeah, British poets love mythology in general, and especially Greek. Classical antiquity = love.
I should have used "priests" instead of saints, but if you like that it'll definitely stay.
Should I go into some sort of detail about the visitations he had in those moments before his death? Like, what he is repenting for, the process of repentance, and such? Is that the sort of thing you'd like to see?
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Hmm. "saints" or "priests" could work for the beginning, I think. Saints make the people seem more "good", priests just makes them seem powerful in some way. It depends what you mean, exactly, I suppose. When I think of a priest, I dont always think of someone good and light, since priests can be corruptive, too, but saints I wouldnt associate with anything bad.
I think you definately should talk about what ephebe is repenting. If not in this poem, then definately in your next one, talking about "thrashing" (which, by the way, is a great word). The visitations would definately go well in this poem, since the whole piece seems to be sort of full of his...essence?
Talking about the visitations and what is being repented would probably make the poem feel more complete, although if you wanted to be ambiguous about what it is, that would be cool, too (make people think). I'm not sure if you just wanted the reader to guess at what was going on, or know, or if you weren't sure of things yet.
Either way, the only thing you can do is make this poem even better, since it already is amazing.
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I'm really afraid of there being "too much" of this poem. I will work on writing a second piece that elaborates on all that. I just need to come up with what exactly he's repenting for...
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