Perseus & Medusa

When Jo and I were bored, we decided the best form of entertainment would be to challenge each other to write sestinas based on random words selected from the Wikipedia page on Medusa and the OED word of the day (which was fall-back, bizarrely). Whilst Jo's was obviously better, and featured romance and death, mine is just Medusa moping about her cave for a bit. Here it is:

Still crawling out of infancy,

you closed your eyes, remembering

the stony stares of silent gazers.

They thought they’d peered behind your mask,

and they froze you with their force. Fall-back

to where each shadow soaks the echoes of your name. Medusa.

The echoes of the arms that sheltered your name, Medusa,

the hiss of the lisp of your infancy.

Arms out—the shadows overlap—fall-back.

Let the darkness cushion your remembering.

Let the darkness lick the outlines of the mask,

of the stone-cold ones you’ve overcome, your gazers.

“Ash-back eye-holes swallowed me on the street. Gazers

reframed me in the spit of their hiss. Medusa,

sitting in the shadows and stroking each death mask

with the tip of her leathered tongue. So many boys

who’ve shared their lips since infancy;

the texture of each tongue, the friction, worth remembering.

Arms out—the shadows catch my skull—fall-back.

“Fall-back, and fuck their understanding, fall-back

away from the ash-black eyes of gazers,

and later I will wake from this remembering,

but now the cave cocoons me with my name. Medusa.

This stone is the shelter of an infancy

come again. Child of darkness. Girl with the Halloween mask.”

So you spoke. “Don’t come close. My last mask

has worn through. Could you fall-back

just a little? Here, in my den of infancy,

each ash-black stone will smother gasping gazers.

My rules. My statues. The playthings of Medusa

weep blood with the force of their remembering.

“Do I see you trembling? Or am I just remembering

the man who came here last? See his death mask.

One of my best. Crying for his Medusa.

I still trace his tears. But fall-back,

this place is not for you. Your eyes are not cruel like those gazers

who’ve shrunk me since my infancy.”

I rose and put an end to her remembering.

I kept her head and stroke the snakes sometimes to mask

my guilt. I took it home. Already stone, I killed Medusa.

Ex-Two

The second kiss creaks to the hour.

The clock hands wrenched to parallel.

The click of minutes clasp my neck

to mark each second’s subtle swell.

One minute past. I feel the sweat

that lubricates your underarm.

Your body’s the efficient kind:

it cuts and slices up the time.

Though stationary I wish to stay,

you long for nine to turn twelve.

Our rhythm’s out. Our feeling’s faked.

We’re past our prime. It’s getting late.

We part as strangers on the hour.

Convergence creaks past parallel.

The minutes yellow on my neck,

as rotting moments sometimes dwell.

The hours struck and left us bruised,

by dawn we barely knew ourselves,

as cold hands cut above each other

to mark each second’s subtle swell.

Webster

And when I kissed your painted lips

the climax was ungodly.

Devotion dredged my cold canals.

The poison pitched me strongly

down to the floor, where writhing I

felt bone beneath the skin

and tousled hair. Caught unawares

I felt the pain begin.

My brain’s on fire. Body’s numb.

My veins stretch to be free

in ridges, sharp and angry still,

on a thin, unsettled leaf

of a poison Bible. Damage done,

I go I know not whither.

This kiss of death steals all my breath

and sends it to my killer.

Where murderers kill murderers;

where death is set in wax;

where hairs dig deep beneath the skin,

we pick conceits to set our sin.

To a bouy

Displayed in ThornFest: Turning Tides.

I’ve been thinking I wanted to kiss you,

old friend,

and your laugh is the sand in my shoes.

It’s been too long for me to still miss you,

they said,

and spend salt on the paths that we choose.

Yet I still wish that I had been braver

back then,

when we really had nothing to lose,

except some subtle pride

and the call of the tide

was eternally prying us loose,

when I was like the lapping wave

of a trembling, two-tone tide

caught inbetween

the advance and retreat

with the moonlight on my side,

but you were not the cavern’s mouth

and I could not come inside.

Composed and pristine,

you were calm and complete

and repelled me every time.

And it might be then or never

now I’m rolling out to sea;

and we both might wait forever

until we can finally be;

but I’m giving my all

to a foreign shore

where you can never follow;

and they say it is easy

like giving in

to the cold dream of tomorrow.

Breakers will break us

and old bouys will save us

now that you are a Lenten dream;

and the children will make us

for the cold sea to take us

as we wait for the tide to come in.

If You Want Me

For my Valentine

Swell then, heart,

You rattling thimble!

Balloons may burst

Before they pass the clouds.

If feet shake and flesh prickles

With every step

That could be the last,

Then why should we walk?

If every syllable will float

Unprotected in the air

That waxes with our words,

Then why should we talk?

Happiness haunts with subtle dread.

You know, if you want me you should have just said.

Happiness

Monday. 8th February. Durham.

I found solitude where the hours expand

In the stale blood stains of coffee cups.

As when the pendulum

Swings past perpendicular

My increase was exponential.

Then the City

Opened its jaws

In a long, contented sigh,

And I walked in the valleys of its molars,

And I felt the warmth of its tongue.

And you know

That this cathedral

Is false hope.

Its tyrannical spires

Stretching everywhere higher.

On the way back down we passed the graveyard

And talked about death in eager voices.

You know rotting's such a bore—

I’ll stain the air with dust.

But what to choose?

A bench?

A tree?

A black smear in the sea?

'Twere now to be most happy.

‘I am happy’ is always a quotation.

The word arose

Before the cold stone

Of St. Mary’s College.

Before I was:

Giddy?

Emotional?

Not particularly sad?

But then:

Happ-eee.

So now that’s done.

But all happy families

Are not alike,

And you are not

That lost Venetian girl.

Today I wanted to ask

If you trust me.

I wonder if you know

I am of those

Too happy in their happiness

That monster their peace

With full-throated ease—

'Twere now to be most happy,

Like a train on a track,

Like a roofless room,

No turning back,

Or halting soon.

'Twere now to be most happy?

When you walk out in the morning with the sun beams on your back

And the dawn says you’re not breaking yet you still detect a crack.

And here's a performance of an earlier version of the poem (with a heavy cold!):

Changes

The scratching cries of blustering birds.

The tickling breeze that gently heaves.

The branches sway to keep the time

Amidst the soft applause of leaves.

Now comes a dying nasal whine

And rasping clearing of the throat.

The cheap-chirp birds and whisper-leaves

Could not compete with billy goats.

And if I was to add my voice

To woodland multitudes,

I’d stay my tongue and think what noise

I’d splutter forth to contribute;

What buzzwords, bywords, hand-me-downs

Would suit the tenor of my theme;

Or if a loud and bestial shout

Could wake the forest from its dream.

The time has come for artifice

To shed the shadows of the past;

To build myself from ashen blocks

And find a new self fit to last.

So come, you changes, murder me,

I’ll turn and face the strange.

Revise and ruin all you see

Erase it all and set me free.