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