What good would it do,
Son of Peleus,
To pull that arrow from your heel?
As you lie there helpless,
Legs useless and folded beneath you.
Your hand clenched around its fletchings
Searching for the source
Of sensations unfamiliar to you.
Pain. Suffering. Mortality.
How strange…
You are only half god and half man,
And all men must die, even you, Aristos Achaion.
The god's gift to you was not invulnerability, but speed.
And with that tendon we now name after you severed,
You are just as human as the rest of us.
That expression of anguish as you look to the sky.
Helmet still dawned as if you could leap up
And slaughter hundreds more Trojans, but you cannot.
An enraged fall from Godhood
Forever immortalized in white stone.
Centuries later it still stands.
Worn and weathered
By the years and all the heavy eyes that fell upon your misery,
Like pouring rain from dark clouds above.
The paradigm of human fatality and flaws.
But you were a god, somewhat at least.
You thought that you would live forever -
We all think that sometimes.
Remember that you have to die.
Otherwise, how do we know that we spent our life living?
Categories:
peleus, mythology,
Form: Ekphrasis
Dragged over the field went your man of such valor.
Unaided by those above, left to the fury of that rage,
Of who took down so many to find the heart of truth,
On that foreign land so long ago.
For who wept longer than you dear lady,
When the son of Peleus took what was yours?
On that foreign land, so long ago.
How do I wipe your tears,
When so long ago did your heart break?
To see him, that one so noble,
Disfigured behind that cruel chariot.
Who held you close
On that grievous day, so long ago?
Now a spoil to the very madness,
That came across the Aegean to your step.
Taking down with swords to flesh.
The sharp blades and the gore,
And what did befall you?
So long ago.
For your loss I do give this one gift
A secret shrine deep within my mind,
Now on quiet nights do I light the censor,
And remember those tears on that tender cheek.
So long ago.
Categories:
peleus, lost love, heart, heart,
Form: Elegy