Requiem and Parallax

I Fought the Hydra
(November, 2006)

I fought the Hydra
I stood before it, small and amazed
where did it come from?
I know now where
I took my heavy sword
with a willing effort, I cut the smoking head
There, I said, begone. I have killed you.

The head fell
While I was yet smiling
two more heads grew
smoking, snaking, attacking
I cut again, again
where did they come from?
I know now where
they fell
I stood small, weaker now, amazed
The heads are gone,
I pointed out.
I killed them.

Two more grew back.
They weren't even real!
But they were killing me
four heads now
I can't move that fast
small, weak, amazed
I cut again

Eight heads
I can not win
My sword is heavy
The ground is red in blood
I am wading in it
This thing is alive
and I am dying
Who's blood is it?
It is my blood.

Where did it come from?

I had a cup.
I held it out with something inside
that was pure, bright, good, clean
and I know it.
Drink, thirsty one?
The thirsty one drank
too thirsty to refuse
I offer again

Suddenly the Hydra comes
it takes its strenght from his
He looks in my cup
There is a snake in it, he says.
There is no snake in my cup.
The snake is his fear
small, weak, amazed, I
demolish it
then hold out my cup
cleanest and brightest
and I know it

There are two snakes, he says.
He says now I put another in
My clean, bright cup
It is all pure, all good
and he calls it poison.

small, weak, amazed
I am standing in my blood.


Parallax
(September, 2007)

A sudden shift in perspective
How afraid he was
the bright chandelier of his mind
turned 180 degrees

Now I see the
twisted branches,
rage-bent iron
rage-quenched light
smoking and dying with impersonal sound
of light bursting out
in a blackened bulb.
A little courage I think
would have revived it
but where is courage when the moment comes
to choose: this what I know
or plunge
into I can't imagine what?

How many,
standing eager, arms open in joy
waited, waited, trembling with waiting
instant with trembling
shaking with love
for that long moment of joy
when timidly, softly, bravely
someone steps in?

And saw, statue like
medusa like
even that one
turned to sudden, shattered stone
Dust on the ground
Irredeemable
Irrevocable
Ashes and dust where life should be

Did he see the shadow
fleet, ironic, intimate
rise up behind the remains
and know himself the slayer?

Ah yes
that's what fear does
I know what I am
He didn't.

What can cure him
Who looked at me and saw
a monster?

Looking, he never saw
Hearing, he never heard
Fear supplied all
Anger filled the gaps
"I was hurt! You shall pay,
who are as I was
on that day
when I learned what all of your kind
are like."

Perhaps, then, vision was clear
and not sight, but mercy
lacked
From the very first night
he wanted blood
and suffering
even with his arms around me
he said,
"I can not wait
til all like you are dead."

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