The Temple of Victory

While hunting deep within a distant forest
Mikos came upon a long forgotten glen.
He watched lizards take refuge in the rubble
Of the moss-shrouded ruins of a shrine.
A serpent wriggled its speckled death
Into a crevice in the foundation.
Stone columns lay scattered like jackstraws.
Amidst the shattered wreckage of its roof
The statue of a Goddess lay broken
And wingless amid an embrace of vines.

A man in rags sat upon the altar.
His skin looked cracked and dead as autumn leaves,
His frame driftwood gaunt and his beard ash-grey,
But his eyes blazed with mind-consuming hatred
"Whose temple was this?"  Mikos wondered
Aloud as his eyes surveyed the ruins.
"Goddess Nike's," its guardian snarled contemptuously
"Flush with the pride of victory and youth I raised it
To her to humble and taunt my rival."
Suddenly, a woman's mocking laughter could be heard.

The old man winced.  "While I paid her this homage,
My vanquished foe found new resolve and trained
To challenge me again.  She favored him this time.
The teeth of his rage left me bloodied and defeated.
My joy now is to remain here until I die,
Watching her temple crumble like the dream
That I'd pursued and won, a victory I'd labored
To commemorate with this shrine of stone."
The angry ancient sighed, then scowled as a woman's
Taunting laughter again echoed through the bitter glen.

Pygmalion Revisited

Mikos last saw him embracing Galatea,
A statue brought to life, Aphrodite's answer
To prayers that begged for the stone maiden's love.
Mikos visited them again though, last winter.
Galatea's gotten fat.  She's now a slattern with jowls.
Her breasts are sagging like a thatched roof
In need of repair.  She's got a termagent's tongue
And a temper volatile as an enraged Achilles.
Their six children have the manners and shrill voices
Of a flock of gulls quarrelling over a dead fish.

Cowed, Pygmalion flees to his workshop refuge
And bars the door.  His desperation is tying
His deliverance to yet another creation.
With a fervency he felt only once before,
He beseeches a miracle from Phyxios, the God
Of miraculous escapes as he labors
To shape a lifelike image of winged Pegasus.
With haste he chisels at the sullen, stubborn stone.
Sweat runs down his tired, ruddy face, and his hair,
Thin and hoary, is mottled with flecks of marble.

Innocence

Soft as a white tuft of dandelion puff
That a breeze picks up to examine,
Caress, then set down in delicate balance
Upon a blade of grass, you fled from me,
As quietly as a whisper of regret.

Like that lingering patch of April snow
That's there in the morning, yet gone by night.
Like the dew that glistens in the first light
Of a summer day, then flees before the heat,
You slipped away, along with childhood's wonder.

You didn't slam the door in a white hot rage
Or punctuate your decision to depart
With an explosion of recriminations.
It wasn't a memory milestone moment
Such as the loss of one's virginity.

I looked for you one day and discovered you'd left.
My sand castle of boyish illusions had been levelled
Beneath an all-engulfing tide of experience.
The leaders that I'd trusted to clear my path had
Lined their pockets and let brush devour the trail.

Our Nation's laws that I'd been taught to revere
Have been forged by corrupt black robed judges
Into the chains of greedy sweat-shop overseers.
My God has become a "Bogey-man" tale whose hell
Is used as "muscle" in evangelical shakedowns.

Love proved the cruellest disappointment of all.
The bright flame of reverent adoration
That I tended when I was its worshipful acolyte
Dimmed to cynicism as I saw love sold on sidewalks
Or dangled to peddle items from beer to mouthwash.

So Irretrievable is innocence now
That when I walk the woods to pluck at twigs of solace,
I can hear the frightened heartbeats in the burrows,
Sense the predator, and smell the musty decay of death.
Although I seek it, even Nature offers no solace,
So irretrievable is innocence now.

While You Sleep (a Rondo)

While you sleep
A thousand different couples fall in love.
A young man begs "a shrine of hers to keep,"
A lock of hair, perhaps a scented glove.
She smiles, complies and sighs, but soon she'll weep,
While you sleep.

While you sleep
A thousand sordid rendezvous take place.
A wife slips out of bed to lightly creep
A few doors down.  To her shame and disgrace
She finds her love's made vows that he won't keep,
While you sleep.

While you sleep
A frightening cataclysm is unleashed.
A earthquake's shaking terror.  Death will reap
A bumper crop tonight.  The screams soon ceased.
Man's God has slaughtered men as man does sheep,
While you sleep.

While you sleep
A soul ascends her way to heaven.  Soon
A blind, indifferent God will end her sleep.
A callous slap.  A harp that's out of tune;
She starts, awakes, observes.  Proceeds to weep,
While you sleep.

Won't you sleep.
Please.
Only in our dreams
Is disillusionment a stranger.