Iris

The western wind’s iridescent wife

He blows through my many coloured glory

We mount the sky with rage and strife

Our liquid love: a messy trajectory

Passion resounds in our quivering bones

Volatile lovers, we bring the storm

We lie tangled upon horizon’s throne

Through maddening love’s chaos, beauty is born

Harpies

For my birds of a feather

And so we lived and loved

As brazen harpies

Mad on salt water

In a bed by the sea

We were blemished, blissful

And absurdly free

Rambling poetic nonsense

As the sun melted into the sky

We don’t need your fickle beauty

We weave seaweed through our hair

And paint our faces with mud

A gnashing of teeth

A rustle of feathers

We delight in discord

By the gathering gold of the day

We clamber over mangrove roots

Thick, tangled and bulbous

Collecting shells and urchins

Like seagulls we scavenge

For the curious and the beautiful

But when the night turns raven black

We dance

In a whirl of dervish glee

Bare breasted and full bellied

Making mockery of the usual

Oh my Aello, my raging storm

You quite intoxicate me

With your resplendence, strange

And your convulsions, most peculiar

I seek the satiation of your caprices

We are chimeral creatures of chaos

Fearsomely beautiful

Beloved of the velvet sea

Wild women

We are wild women

Hot blooded, winged and limber

We pound the damp soil with our fists like drums

And sing out our pleasures to the night

We delight

In the strange shapes we make with our bodies

Unclothing each other

And laughing, shrieking to the open sky

A heightening of desires most base

An unhindered pursuit

Of our wicked yearnings

Spread your feathered limbs

Distort your face

Tilt your head back

And howl

As the stars burn bearing rapturous witness

To our sacred ritual

Of amorous theft

There is dirt under our nails

And teeth marks on our skin

And we are breathless with life

Io

Part One

When I was a girl

With skin white as milk

I would walk through vast and palatial halls

My head bowed in silent reverence

Alone in Acropolis

When I was a young woman

I offered counsel to Queens

‘Io’, they called me

Humble and beloved

The Virgin Priestess

One day I saw a man

More powerful than any I’d ever laid eyes upon

He was whispered to be a great King of the sky

And the marble floor cracked beneath his feet where he walked

He had thick dark curls that hung loose around his shoulders

A tangled beard and wild looks

And eyes that burnt into me

Waking a storm in my heart

He came to me in my dreams

Visions of golden fields

Growing rampant and procreant

Of limbs and moans

And the wild, fierce eyes of Jupiter

Part Two

The day I lost my innocence

I was walking through the laced and golden fields of Lerna

And he appeared before me

Surging with desire

I thought to evade him

But his gaze made my limbs heavy

It surprised me how gentle his touch was

How quickly my body turned to butter beneath his mouth

And I forgot all reason for resistance

He stretched his arms wide

And summoned the clouds

Dark and pendulous

To cloak us from watching eyes

To hide our tryst from the world

From the crags of Mount Olympus

Hera, Queen of cunning

Sees the skies gather with thick grey matter above that golden meadow

Suspicion aroused

She descends her watch tower

Jupiter, clutching at me

In the height of his pleasure

Whispers furiously and casts me to the ground

‘mutatio bovum’

I fall to my hands and knees

The incantation still ringing in my ears

As a sharp pain splits my head

I arch my back

And I groan, deep and guttural from my throat

My breasts and belly convulse and sag

My fingers itch and I look down to see

My horror

Cloven hoofs upon the dusty ground

Hera chases the clouds

They scatter at her hand

The barley withers and blackens at her touch

Fruit smokes and falls from branches

A fatal ripening

Smearing the soil with flesh coloured pulp

‘What’s this?’

Her voice mordacious

But sweet as red wine

It cloys at my ears

And I feel dizzy from my transformation

‘what a beautiful bovine

A gift to be bestowed upon your faithful wife?

I have such a thirst for milk

Would you deny me, husband, what I desire?’

Part Three

When I was a beast

I walked the land without rest

One thousand eyes watch me

One thousand gadflies sting me

And all are sentry

With the patience of the ages

Jupiter for my womb

Hera for my life

Wandering drives me nearly to madness

But as I stagger through Bosporus

The earth shapes itself around me

To guide my passing

I come upon a man

Bound in invisible tethers to the side of Mount Caucasus

With an eagle feasting from his viscera

His face twisted in agony, he calls out to me

‘Mother of Dynasties

You shall come to rest in Egypt,

And there you will return to woman form

And the fruit of your womb

Will release my chains’

Part Four

I find myself in a land of new gods

And strangely shaped temples

And there my wanderings finally cease

As I fall beside the Nile

Horns and hoofs retreating

My woman form returns

The day I became a Mother

I lay mired on that riverbank

Mud swells around my hips

And streaks across my distended belly

Milk leaks from my heavy breasts

And courses down my brindled body

The Nile rages

And I cry out in agony

for the child charging from my womb

the fluid of my fertility runs thick and fast around me

and courses through the mud

Unto me a babe is born

Precious child mud, river and earth

I clutch at him with all my remaining strength

And he feverishly drinks my life’s milk

The tide rises

And the sun bakes the mud to our skin

I name him Epaphus

For my skin still trembles from the touch of his conception

Part Five

When I was an old woman

They named me Isis

Mother of Dynasties

Each day my son grows stronger

They say he will rule Egypt

A great horned King

And son of his sons

Will free those who are eternally bound

But I have withered

My womb still aches

My skin is stained

Daubed and couple coloured

I lose my words

And moan from my throat

My legs buckle beneath me

And my hands grip the earth

Sometimes in my dreams I walk those halls

I see the ground crack beneath Jupiter’s holy feet

I still see that golden field

Blistering and smoking

I feel the grain pressed hard against my skin

I smell those cloying fruits

And feel his touch curdle me like butter

But I am a wise and weary woman

The child I once was burns in the sky

Beside her first love and his wild, fierce eyes

And my great, great granddaughters

Will return to that city Argos

And will walk the fields of Lerna freely

Alpheius and Arethusa

Three times I saw you
woman of the land
three times you entered me
the capricious sea
three times our bodies were one

From the moment that I felt you
nymph, naked and wild
when i felt your toes
in my muddy banks
I understood
one day again I would surround you

The first time
You bathed in me
Your body
soft, brown and reptilian
lithe and limber
slender and svelte

You bathed in me,
in my erratic body
my tumult surrounds you
my rising tides push up against you

For glorious moments
so consumed we were
not even air could invade
your spaces that i filled
most private, most intimate
i breathed you in
and you drank from me

Together we rose
wilder and wilder

But you rose from me
you shook your hair
and walked away
for you dwell on the land
and I am the sea
But, my love, I am drawn to thee

Your footprints remained marked in my soil
and I remained a vestige dripping from your skin

The second time I felt you, my love
You ran by me
throbbing with life
your sisters shrieking
giddy from the hot sun
you splashed, you played
and i swelled around you
simmering with your freedom

Ripples resounding
your love will drown me
Implacable was my desire once more.

So here i wait, cavernous and capricious
For you roam the land
wayward and wayfaring
and i am that which mires you
that to which you will return

You have feet to walk the hard, red earth
and I am the swelling, surging sea
but I am bound to your body
and implacably I will pursue thee

The third time I met you, 

I was rushing through Ortygia
fanciful and free
raging and ravenous
and there you were
by the hand of Artemis
no longer mortal
a giggling, babbling stream

I watch for you
i search the seas, the brooks, the springs
i listen for your laughter like bells
I feel for your skin, now soft flowing water
your wayward feet now thunderous torrents

There is a current that runs through me
a deep and entrenched destination
without deviation,
without hesitation
without alteration

I am bound to your body
as you, rivulet,
are now bound to the sea
i am bound to thee
until we merge
boundlessly

I surge through Syracuse
a thrum of determination
I find you there waiting
a thrum of anticipation
we mingle our waters
a thrum of satiation

I press against your banks
your columns of soil
of mossy dank pillars
here i dwell in your warm cavernous body
I shape myself around your creases
I flow through you, i surround you, i swallow you whole

Finally, my love, we are emerged.

Eos and Eros #2

I would have come for you
tantric with trepidation
for the desultory dawn.
I would have stolen you
a winged and wondrous thief
and carried you to the top of mount Olympus.
In pinioned and prurient pursuit
I would have come for you.

And there
untouched, far from the sight of the world
I would take you
we would have laid in the sloping scree

laid among the debris

the stones falling like heavy rain
the crags, the carnage, the chaos

the very mountain side would erode and crumble

beneath the force of my passion
we would clutch at the detritus
we would moan in the dust.

Eros

A prurient prisoner, a salacious slave
I am doomed to desire
it's heaviness and lightness
it fetters and frees me
it delights and deludes me
Eros, bittersweet, ebullient, exalted

Dactyls

We are the Dactyls
sons and daughters of the Master Blacksmith
and we come in half light

We come with the gypsies and the thieves
We come with the marauders and madmen

On swift and nimble feet
we tread lightly
in clandestine pursuit of creation

We spread out across the land
the fingers of an outstretched palm
We clutch at Gaity and her bounty
we hold it in our grasp

We leave little gifts
in secret places
oddities. curiosities. treasures.

We are the makers and miners
the sorcerers and smiths

We sew for the reaping of mortal men

The jealousy of Hera

The most powerful, the most desired
my  name is Hera, Bride of the Gods
A woman wreathed in gold
as jealous as I am beautiful
and my beauty is rampant and divine

By cunning, craft and seduction
I claim my wedded victory, my matriomonial prize
the fidelity and adoration of Zeus
it is sacred, it is mine
I will protect it with all the might of heaven

You will fear me, you will honour me
and you will fall in despair and thrall at my feet

My husband, he will stray
he has a weakness for foolish beauty
he is restless and easily charmed

You, foolish girl
we are women
I am your Queen
you must be wiser than that, girl
to betray your kind and kin
to cross the bride of heaven
to steal what she protects fiercely

Do you feel your fingers pricking?
does your skin begin to itch?
look into the waters, does your beautiful face stare back
or the face of a grotesque bearded beast?
those hands that you caressed my husband with
are they soft and supple?
or mangled claws?
your voice, seductive siren,
can you still sing sweetly,
or does a growl whisper from your lips?

I will blind you, foolish girl
I will scratch out your eyes
I will silence you, beautiful siren
I will constrict your chest

Do you hear the lions roaring
the snakes snapping at your pretty heels?

I will come for you
with all the might of heaven
you will pay for your beauty
you will pay for making him stray
I will come for you with roth and rankour
a fury unbound

Gaity will erode and weep
for nothing endures as long as my rage
when the foolish beauty of the world fades
my husband and I will remain

time circles around us
these great cities of Argos evolve
and we remain implacable
at the centre of all of the universe
lies our marriage bed
and it is forged by my fidelity