Aphelion Issue 292, Volume 28
March 2024
 
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An Offering For Hades

by Theresa C. Gaynord


Deep in the labouring night
a newborn's cries outbreathes
its air.
She was born of quenched love
vanquished in a storm, upon a surly
shore of a half-dead crew,
in wild October
when the wind raged round the Black-Sea.

It is said the moon reached out,
extracting the child from her mother's
womb
while bewitching reels of light
blessed her with the power of Zeus
and Demeter.
By fate's decree her mortal mother
bid life a fond farewell, sickened
with regret, freed from rumor's tongue,
her honor saved.

Phantoms wander round the shapeless sands,
dwindling in dust by the rot and rust
that time hath rendered.
Laughing in a brook treading a lonely stare
little maiden plays with whimsical nyaids,
splashing among lilies in quiet streams;
a child's psyche gifted with glorious dreams.

Her cinder-gray haired guardian watches
as blankness looms between curtains of raindrops,
splashing euphorically out of the tumbling
rhythmic swings of purple spins
that dance across Earth and Heaven;
the visioning powers of a child's soul
piercing the material screen.

In the stillness of sleep
when the twitching chimes of a day's time
have played out, figures danced in her mind
with sight
fashioned forth with the delight
of a warm eternal fire that burns
where lifeless things abide.
His whirling wheels of flames
refurbished memories of the insidious
aches of learned love and learned shame
opening a gateway that betook her.

Waves crash against an Olympian stone
surging, swaying, swelling, sinking
beyond seas that nobody else
dreamed of lest her nightmare should fade
into blind drifts of vapors cast by
Empedocles's spell.
So tells the tale of a Goddess newly
arisen as legend's moments fell thereon a gliding
leaf; a tale half told, a scheme laid out
of banality and the manifold temptations
of immortal beings bearing Persephone's
sad response to Hades selfish grief.


© 2020 Theresa C. Gaynord

Theresa likes to write about matters of self-inflection and personal experiences. She likes to write about matters of an out-of body, out-of-mind state, as well as subjects of an idyllic, pagan nature and the occult. Theresa writes horror, as well as concrete gritty and realistic dramas. Theresa is said to be witch and a poet. (within the horror writing community).

Find more by Theresa C. Gaynord in the Author Index.

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