'Previously (Yours Without)'
Goodnight, prince of stability
I hope this finds you well
Years from now when dawns have passed
And I am just an empty shell
Goodnight, smiles of innocence
I pray you've not run far
In time we'll see the nature of life
Then we'll add another scar
Goodnight, strains of tarnished faith
Your air is moist with pain
If you survive I'm confident
There's disaster to be gained
Goodnight, violent cognizance
If ever you should wake
Things have not changed for better
And it is I that you should hate
Goodnight, brave assembly
Of pure and solid gold
Your glimmering failed to mesmerize
But your story will be told
Goodnight, land I dare not tread
You are too dark to see
Though those who tread you days from now
Will hide in your darkest trees
Goodnight, birth of singing lies
You bring me faith for all
For you can be avoided
But pain is none so small
Goodnight, lost and running child
Who bears the weight of worlds
Carelessly abandoning
Your troubles for a pearl
Goodnight, smiles I used to wear
You've worn your welcome thin
Nothing more will bring you back
As I'm peeling off this skin
Goodnight, sweet eternity
Goodnight, burning rain
Goodnight, all whom I've ever known
May we never meet again
Goodnight, prince of stability
I hope this finds you well…
I liked this. The rhyme and meter are suggestive of innocence or naiveté, but contrast harshly with the lyrics. It's a kind of macabre, twisted lullaby.
Here's something I've just finished my second draft of. I continually return to my pieces, so I can't guarantee that it's finished, but I'm much happier with this than with what I previously had:
"Narcissus: A Tragedy"
In fierce arms coursing with Gaia’s power
The river god swept up poor Liriope
And bound her limbs with heavy water.
Unkind day! It sank to hues of lavender
And dull flame
As Apollo’s chariot drew down the sun
In a wide arc that saw not the least of
Lust’s consequences; the humid air pregnant
With tension, prompting the pastoral swelters
To burst in passionate fervor; Cephisus drunk
On the naiad’s sweet elixirs following
The exhaustion of his seed
Through the effort of his currents.
And in this, the deepening twilight of the day,
The wet fronds dipped to drink the rich river
Which mulled on with languor in its spent state.
The seasons turned with celestial precision,
And on the river rolled, until its lover
Brought forth into the world the bounty of
Their union.
And in the darkling glen Cephisus crept,
Occasionally rising out his course
To indulge in carousal of the flesh,
For though he ever flowed in water’s guise
He sought the arousal of mortal skin
To soothe the steadily seething tempest of
His heart, and assuage the heaving rapids of
His scarcely bound and wild ferocity.
One day whilst reclining in the shade
He saw a face reflected in his waters;
So handsome, so immaculately made
That Cephisus stilled his current and his course
To preserve the image.
And in this mirrored gaze
He saw his beauty and his arrogance
Contained within the contours of a mortal,
Engendered in the aspects of a boy.
And here the river god, Cephisus, gaped
His wide-rimmed waters around the hapless child
And trapped him in a concave and spellbound embrace
Of mutual satisfaction and intrigue.
And here, appalled by that which he had made,
That icon of his sin and rage unbound,
The river god loomed quietly in the shade
And turned the forces of his flow around
So that they circled in and on themselves
And formed a pool around the gawking boy.
In the wood, silent as death, the foliage
Drooping in the weary heat of passion,
A lonely flower stoops. Nemesis prowls
Amidst the undergrowth, and still the hint
Of Echo’s anguished cries do haunt the glen,
Though nothing more than whispers on the wind.
The only way to get back is to dream it, which will probably never happen.
