Sebastian Lockwood
poems on classical themes
Athena
When you pray do you lie to yourself?
Oh that’s fine, but not with me.
These stories you multiply,
sly as always in word and deed
these faces you multiply, take heed
for it is I who taught you your tricks:
oh the lute of your charmed voice
but hold those wiles for others
for when you speak to me in need
it is the test of your metal
it is the plumbing of your core
and what dark depths in that well?
Do not lie to me: I am a Goddess!
When you use my name, Athena, you know
there is no need to tell it slant, make it straight
and clear as your plowman makes his furrow.
athena's shield
Nausica
What strange island is this?
are these people who like people
or people who like to eat people?
And who is this young beauty on the beach
who stands so tall and firm at my approach?
I could use my force but will use my tongue.
Oh Lady, I know not if you are motal
or if you are goddess
If goddess, I assume virginal Artemis
goddess of the hunt
for look how you hold yourself
the tone and line of your limbs
the quicksilver of your skin
and regal eye
But if mortal, oh Lady, what sweet joy
for mother and father to see you grow
but this is nothing compared with the joy
of the man who will entwine with your limbs
who sleeps with you in your olive bed.
Oh girls, calls Princess Nausica
come back, do not hide, for you see
we have a Lord from the sea
chestnut dark and sea spume in his hair
I know not if you will stay long
for Athena has kissed your tongue
The Scabrous Goddess
Oh but that Goddess is scabrous
she whispered in the ear of Icarus
to fly higher and further than father
death in a thousand treacherous feathers.
It was she told Helen how lecherous
he, who shall not be named, was in the larder
of Olympus with kisses so cancerous
to those whose lips and lobes he devoured.
Oh that great bird of a thousand eyed feathers
each feathered eye a hissing mouth and tongue
to lie, lick, mock, taunt, thrill, shock and hiss
her way into every waking, sleeping, thought
show your lover with another: show the rung
that leads, you know who, above you: kiss
with devious kisses the love that was bought
and sold: feed the green bile in the open ear
draw it back out through a straw with a leer
turn sister on mother on father on lover
that Goddess of gossip is scabrous
given in ways unholy amorous
as she tears down your great city with ease
that hideous bird of your dream disease.
Odysseus & Calypso
You know that it is time for me to go
You take me to your grove where your trees grow
Poplar, Ash, Alder and long tall Fir
You tell me it is time to make it so
To build the craft of my spirit and make it fly
So you hand me the double-headed axe
Haft of olive wood, blade sharp as a lie
And say, go now, this is not where you will die
So true how splitting is always in half
Painful as this is you make it gentle
Your dress for a sail and wind like a laugh
As I ride the well built barque of my craft
And thank you forever sweet Calypso
After these long years of love together
You tell me it is time and to make it so
So I sail on into hell and all weather
Sure of the spark of my death
Sure of the wind of your breath.
Odysseus & Circe
It was Hermes who gave me the power
To seduce you, to break your barrier
To hold the sharp bronze of my will to your
Delicate throat, the lute of your voice
As you say, who are you to resist me!
It was the molu, the scream of ginseng
Gave me power over your sorcery
When you asked for me in your bed, I said
Yes Lady, but no more guile, no more wiles
You turned my men from swine to men again.
And then the long dark fall into your will
You who could be me and my all to me
You took me into your bestiary
Tygers and Jaguars that follow you
Lust, the loosener of limbs, undid me.
It was others at last pulled me away
It was like loosing a skin to lose you
My journeyís end not in the wrap of you
I know I must go, I look back at that part
I leave with you, look ahead at my art
Craft I rescue from your hold, the future
I navigate haunted by your spell
If the parts of love are ten you hold nine
I escape with that single part of self
To blow back into the fire of myself
He who makes a beast of himself
Gives up the pain of being a man
And now that pain that says you are alive
Is back, goodbye dark sorcery, welcome light
As I navigate the tears of this sea
To find a heart core pure as olive wood.
©2005 Sebastian Lockwood
visit Sebastian's site
Odysseylive.org
