Songs of Persephone
Pluto’s Wife/ Demeter’s Daughter
Persephone, your will is free
Even as your living is in bondage
to forces much older in their power
You are free to reconcile your fractured life
Daughter in Summer’s sun
smiling warmly, playing at innocence
with charms long practiced
Mother’s Fool
Mother’s Lamb
Saved from that horrible man —
Well, joint custody
Ever Her beloved child
While it is no secret
Down below you are honored Queen
among tortured souls ever needy of your
attentive care
Far from noblesse oblige, it is your
chosen career, though not chosen by you
Are you told enough:
“You do it proud.” or even acknowledged
for the prowess your will gives existence?
Free Will, not Free Choice
It is learning to make of the whole sad cacophony
discrete instruments of harmony, of divine symphony
to find, realize, act with
impeccable integrity
as child or Queen
or someone between
Persephone’s Worlds
I have wandered far from thoughtless girlhood,
am woman grown, a Queen
in my own right.
Yet I am treated with the expectations
of a mindless child
in my mother’s Summer home.
The Gods are all agog with Zeus,
fickle, abrasive, free to take full stance
above the laws he so imperiously commands.
My Dark King is so much more a man,
sincere, deeply feeling, committed to his realm,
compassionate, if not always kind.
Yet, this season I must obey the crowd,
display charm and grace
in haute couture, make small, insipid
conversation with useless socialites
decorating Zeus’ lawn parties.
Up here, life is meaningless,
All flash and doggerel
to amuse, O’, do entertain us.
So tiring to endure the ennui.
Those not privy to opulent entitlement,
relegated to the dregs of servitude, or less
endure for their time, brutal, painful, short,
for no good reason.
I hear their horrid tales,
back in my rightful place and purpose.
Shrunken souls, shriveled by life time hungers
still growling beyond the grave.
I am balm and wise mother.
At last they matter, their stories opening in me
a marvelous passageway through which they are
taken into paradise.
My life above, the petulant daughter,
the pampered goddess spawn,
I endure coldly.
Summer’s trivialities, properly obedient to
rituals of social condition,
know nothing of my true calling
under Winter’s glory.
Persephone’s Breakthrough
This is where the idea is born.
Soft green meadows gently transforming into fall
Sounds of dying, scent of woodfire and candlelight
No separation between what is becoming
Accept and be revealed
Summer’s wild adventures
Spring was a torrent of clarity, precious rain,
Earth coarse, ready for fecund pleasure
Queen of night in daylight’s realm
obsessed in flowering
roses and daffodils
valleys and nubile hills
all is vanity and laughing vice
“But, Mother, I’m not a nice girl.
I’m a creature of the breeze; secure in shadow;
alive on the cutting edge of the storm.”
Myth in revision
Standing at the back of the playground
learning theater, tucking metaphors
into interstices of sense and anticipation
In spring, kicking stones along sandy riverbeds
reading the classics
to savor practice: valor, glory, dramatic lines
Summer deceives
the stink of rot where flowers bloom
ancient feuds, retaliations, rage
tyrannosaurus feeding future waste,
absorbing a zeitgeist of want, of predation
Within greed-swollen seed infectious fear
makes merry with misery’s habit
Mythology frustrates, curls back on its own ash
Eyes burn with hazy summer wine and wilding
Feet connect dust to sky — but only in designated
spheres, with designated peers, self-selected inhibitions
Sweat out poison into the ground; now, eat the bounty
Midsummer farce, far from honor, far from sunrise,
counting out the chimes as if time were treasure
Silly summer madness as if what matters
is so circumscribed, so predictable
Early autumn firelight
reminiscent of witch hunts, ghosts of calvary,
dire warnings and endless hide and strike
The game, the funhouse, turns deadly
Sanctuary calls, demanding sacrifice
The noble phoenix fed on frankenseed
can not rise
Skies descend, dark mirroring
Smell the woodsmoke, intoxicating, soft and sweet,
masks the taste of bitter bile, secret vomiting,
starving despite harvest’s gay array of treats
Faded, nearly blind, falling in and out of
shamanic fever, primeval native callings beyond sight,
ripple of tribal beat at the periphery
ecstatic vision dark/light/agony and brilliant breaks
starbright constellations
Traversing worlds
seasons, years, moments of clarity
no need to navigate, to invent boundaries;
dance of the highlands warmth and sustenance
permeates
makes whole
Approaching Winter
Twinkling lights. I remember twinkling,
clouds resplendent awaiting snowfall.
It’s Persephone’s season below,
growing in power, regality.
Friend to post-living souls,
hearing their stories,
sharing her own,
from the above time.
Flitting about,
we hum comforting phrases,
sweat anxiously in crowded malls
over inner demands for a never
remembered perfection.
Children standing in awe below
magnificence of glowing giant trees.
Cities return to primal forest
for an imaginary interval.
We recount ourselves our stories,
pray Santa finds us worthy
of that shiny plaything that will
make us all right, make us happy.
Happy little children, so Mama
and Papa might be proud,
stop fighting,
sing us happy children holidays,
take us back to the Garden.
Deep below, Persephone combs
her loosened hair, long tangly
root
core
essence.
Magical petals of bliss, succulent aroma,
blow about within the Garden walls.
Perennial flowers sleep, blanketed in
millennial layers,
reverberations of legends,
plotlines thick with arboreal lore.
Snowflakes twinkle, lightly falling,
drape long-growing trees
peacefully awaiting their Queen.
My Pet Goddess
We ride creative waves.
Chaste Goddess child, frisky muse
picks daisies, pilfers beehives.
Sweet as to please
deities craving
for innocence.
Secret games whisk us
to deep intimacy.
Supernatural companion, she
comforts me, familiar with these
cycles of light and dark
responsibility —
cosmic irony.
Mother’s reward.
Father’s Hetaera.
Beloved of mordant Destiny.
Beguiling affection, she cuddles
into my simple, abyssal fears.
She licks the eyelids of my
inner vision, coaxes me open.
Together we transcend
hierarchy,
frolic
dimensions between.