Perseus

HERE I stand
paralysed by
putrifaction

Everywhere's
this twisted

bowel, brain
quarry, prey

death-locked

and standing
in the teeth
of the stink
I take stock

Father, Zeus
Danae, nurse
I am Perseus

I'm the bolt
who revolved
and resolved
himself born

the very nut
wound 'round
silver strut
snake sprung
from the gut

The past now
the prophesy
my office is
to break the
outer clutch
of the shell
that cuts an
exposed foot
in search of
a pure pearl
chained fast
to the stone

So bright is
her sky that
tiny strokes
a paintbrush
plied on the
snowy canvas
lay a yellow
halo of hair
upon leg and
the underlip

Amber fibres
coil by coil
so that that
copper flame
framed round
the darkling
lip of bliss
and its bung
line by line
in that dawn
each exactly
the arrested
precision of
new daylight

Rosy fingers
of the bards
I've seen as
in our lodge
nipples rose
to sun-shaft
closing each
fierce wound
of this root
of humankind
throbbing in
a lonely bed

And I kissed
those pearls
that strayed
from spittle
and my mouth
sliding down
pulled sweet
at the lilac
as her mouth
caught at me
hot and cool
and she said

The world is

in spite its
seeming size

just a mural

and its wall
the mind, is

its mountain

to scale. If
she said, we

have courage

then come up
dear, ascend

My reverie's
an absurdity
a fat finger
clutching at
and prodding
til the taut
string limps

No fine line
image-strung
can aid, but
nth-drawn, a
wound-up gut

Her coven is
the covet of
connoisseurs
a gallery of
ossified men

I must stare
despite fear
face-to-face
where for me
the other is
a true scale
of the world

This is that
bright aegis
I will bring
to the panic
and at amber
shine of eye
reflecting a
hole of hell
all my sword
and my blood
will rise up
to the chaos

I, within me
revolved and
through this
I'm resolved

As I crawled
to the world
from my home
inside Danae
so I will to
the Gorgon's
and kill the
putrid bitch



© Dan Goorevitch