Disturbing Ovid

The dawn arrived in her soft saffron car,

reading the paper over breakfast

a silence fell to break the air’s

insistence on carrying clutter from afar.

Done with the drivel of the world,

the silence encouraged thought

to morph; so, to a universe where love

is cruel, men are destroyed by Gods

and treachery paid for in blood…

‘hang on? That’s…Oh! never mind…’

Sulphur smeared torches lit the way,

following heroic deeds and tragic loss of love,

the bathing of wounded hearts in tears.

The Serpents teeth had been sown

and armies of the dead fought and died again.

Lydian sailors cast into the spray

by the boy Bacchus, a man at play.

Fools challenging the Gods

turned into owls, bats and frogs

and love so cruel…Echo and Narcissus,

poor Pyramus, poor Thisbe.

And Atlas made to carry

the weight of the world upon mountainous shoulders

Medusa’s nemesis upon winged Pegasus

and the slaying of the Gorgon

all these tales and more did fill my morning

but the fresh beauty of silence

withered into the air…

destroyed by the incessant buzzing

of a Bluebottle lost in curtains of poor taste

from which it had now escaped.

Child of the serpent race, child of Mars

I know your tricks, you seek to destroy

this process of transcendence.

I’m the eye in this universe

Your guise is no disguise, your ploy

fails, upon the display cabinet

filled with decorative tat,

Lydian dolphins, marble elephants,

fresh garlands, tresses dripping with myrrh,

crystal glasses and all that.

I slake my thirst for vengeance

with a weapon that proffered hope

a rolled up copy of The Guardian’s

G2 supplement, I’d gone over the

edge and could no longer cope.

Swat!

my winged tormentor

fast though it was

fell lifeless into the bin…and silence returned

I have no use for the company of Nymphs.

Paul Williams©2006