Christopher Hedley-Dent

Chris's poem as workshopped,
the first five sections of a long poem:
I,  II,  III,  IV, and  V

Persephone

I

Zeus at his window
watched the dark stained
canvass of the sky
turn lighter
as Apollo, his son
the world's first worker
assiduous on his early shift
plucked from below the horizon
as though it were a coin
on a velvet bed
the glistening sun,
and placed it with precision
in the Eastern corner.

Light streamed unassailed
through the unshuttered window
and showed
the disorderly precision
of the coverlet's ripples
on the double bed,
unwearied of late
by the dolphinesque rhythm
of genital sport,
and the wardrobe's disarray
of theatrical disguises
the Haute Couture of power and seduction.

Zeus flicked the dust
from the ageing disused clothes
and remembered his days
of unthwarted fun,
how roaming the earth
when it was young
he'd sported the rawness
of his youthful patina
that commanded to orgasm
almost any girl he chose,
and those who would not succumb
he'd hypnotize then spike
lulled by an illusion
of cloud or swan.

Compared to this:
the dullness of his present life.
He groaned, barracked in his room
by the mounting hoard
of unsigned papers,
blown by the carefree winds
through the halls of Olympus
to rustle insistently
outside his door:
A yellowing sheaf of worthy
uninteresting plans,
as useless to him
as the fallen leaves of Autumn:

an extension to the western wing,
the rearrangement
of a continental mass,
a scheme for agriculture,
a policy for drainage …
he burned with rage

and as he turned
a mirror flashed his image back,
he gasped 'is that really me?
an ageing hipster
deserted even by his tan,
betrayed by the audacity
of those creeping stalks
of white. Unhealthy weeds
that strangle the promise of spring.'
He tugged his beard:
a puffy cloud of scurf released,
'what worth has life
now, when all freewheeling's done
and I feel as desirable as a drain.

Yes, I Zeus, Sky God, Master of all
confined by tradition
to an infinity
of rectitude and boredom.
A curse on you Immortality,
if only I could die as other men
0 perpetual Autumn, 0 Nymphs!'

A wind blew the door ajar
nudging from painful reverie
Zeus who saw a shadow prowl
then falter. A knock.
'Who is it?'     pause.
'It is I your brother Hades.'
'Come in and welcome. But
what brings you now, the one
so long absent from Olympus?'

Enter Hades,
a seven foot length
of bristling muscle
toned and tightly meshed.
But a tremor in his coal black eyes,
He turned away from Zeus.
His tongue, an axe that deftly
cuts the buzzing knot
of mortal life,
assigning each his place
in bliss or hell
is strangely locked.
'Well?' said Zeus

'Unused to subtlety as I am
in my slender life of judgement
in this state I feel, all simplicity's gone,
I cannot …' he stopped as if
the hinges of his tongue were jammed.
Pinpricks of sweat appeared.
He grunted and launched again.

'Too long; have I been alone
on my solitary plinth,
no hand to hold …
I need a bride and now I've found her,
one whose beauty
burns more brightly
than any torch in Tartarus.
Something in me has been singed
I too burn as tallow …
What is this thing
that knows no exactitude,
no measure?

Dammit I talk as a dolt
my mouth crammed with obols,
to the point. It is your daughter
Persephone, that affects me thus,
but protocol demands your assent.
I desire her as my wife.'

Well I'm damned
who would think it
of my brother Hades,
to feel the heat between his thighs!
At last. Gladly my permission
what wouldn't I do in his position…

but caution
not that I care for Demeter,
that bitch who dared refuse
me, or her spawn…
but I fear her power.
Zeus remained silent
then as a trap door opens
so his mouth
'In this matter, my dear brother
I can neither help nor hinder,
but though a gate appear closed
it may not be bolted.'

II

The sun disc
in mid-career across the day,
climbed to its pediment in the sky
and stopped
peering imperiously down
on the plane below
drowsily nestled in heat.

Where invested with light,
the furniture of landscape
submits to its habits
of colour and shadow.

On this plane, a grove,
where striding trunks
clash to a vault,
roofed by a tracery
of entwining boughs
to resist the curious sky.

The downpouring light
is grated in slivers
by serrated leaves
and cascades in soft dapple
on the forms below
drowsily polaxed by feast.

Apart from this group,
a young girl stands.
Young breasts too
peep through her muslin dress
as spring buds pierce
their leafy scroll.

She hovered outside
the annoying buzz
of conversation,
repulsed by its exclusive
grown-up code.

Unable to follow
the words' connections,
she was left with words alone,
which she clutched
like a bracelet
whose string is broken
fathoming quickly
the way each was spoken
before they fell
silently like pebbles
to the bottom of her mind.

A pause broke temporarily
the verbal circle.
She saw her chance
and hopped inside
declaiming sourly
' Why are grown-ups
quite so boring,
choking with chatter
the passing day.

'While you have been talking
the world has changed:
an army of termites
has destroyed our meal
and found a new province
in the bole of a tree,
the islands in the sky
have drowned quietly
in its ocean,
the trees have played airs

composed by the wind,
larvae have hatched
and grown twenty years older,
I have plaited my hair
and invented a game
- our shadows have lengthened.'

'Beloved young sister
we are too old
to trouble this noon
with curious attention,

nature is beautiful
but dangerous and indifferent
we have too little time
to unravel the lines
which have already enmeshed us,

new information
will not help to direct us
to the source of distress;
why our lovers have left us
or our lack of power.

The mystery of beehives
the meaning of birdsong,
or the abundance of insects
are best kept secret,

our eyes have been glutted
on the blight of change,
there is a point where
perception and pain elide,

and so we must huddle
in a consoling circle
and exchange the gossip
that has become our lives,

our backs averted
to the lengthening shadows
that will seal up our senses
and finally engulf us.

But you must go sister,
out into the sunlight
and conspiring landscape
and be found by your own mistake.'

III

"Evasion through metaphor,
trust my brother to run true to form;
'though a gate be closed it may not be bolted!
Indeed! well, I've kicked it open.
No doubt at favour cost of his Olympian cronies,
banishment even. You're on your own, as always
a choice between outcast and solitary.
What loss, their mincing deference
at council meetings
to the 'bad smell' from under ground.
But enough of that, I'm here,
guided by the all seeing eye of Apollo
to the site of she who enflames me."

Hades jumps from his burnished chariot,
the latest model forged by Vulcan.
The reflections of its golden sheen
outwitting the power of the sun.
He preens himself in the wheelhub
striking a range of Godlike poses,
searching for the rarest tincture
of smirk and frown
that would make irresistible
his avowal of love.

Suddenly, he felt lost
adrift in a stream of possibility,
"How do I talk to her,
What do I say?"
He scanned the landscape
for some chink, some clue
in the monotonous harmony of nature.
"Nothing. Everything has the colour of inevitability:
a seamless marriage of figure and ground,
plant to soil, bird to bush,
Heaven to Earth
on the surface of water."

Instantly two squirrels hop
out into a clearing,
dart and tag.
One stops, the other continues
dancing, gesturing
in diminishing circles
until electrified by contact
the other succumbs…
mesmerized, Hades watches
until the sound of voices
jars his attention.
Parting the grass he sees a picnic gathering
and further off, the girl.

She sits cross legged
joining flowers idly
into a garland,
thinking vaguely on
her absent father,
so long unseen
face scarcely remembered,
a receding character of rumour
floating like a cloud
on the edge of her mind,
on the savage rift
between him and her mother,
the removal to Sicily…

She muses on the future
as blank as the blue above her,
her present state,
"I have the status of a valuable toy,
a life of momentous waiting
with no power of action.
How I chafe against this prison
of enervating leisure.
I am a stone in the river
polished to no purpose
by the rushing waters
I gleam, but no one dare pluck me."

At the periphery of vision
the rim of a shadow
seeps slowly towards her
like the edge of a tide.
She stares up at
a huge silhouette
towering above her,
eclipsing the sun.
A warriors' helmet
obscuring the face
of this taut construction
of muscle and leather.

It bowed stiffly
but remained silent and motionless.
submerged in the helmeted gaze,
she felt eye whites
darting like fish,
probing her body
with delicate enquiry
each recess and curve.
Then lips moved
and as from a cave
in a distant mountain
a sound issued,
turning to words
"I have come for thee."

The figure begins dancing
slowly around her,
her eyes startled, fixing on his
trace the movement.
Then her body, reluctant,
uncoils from the ground
unable to resist
the torque of motion
gaining momentum at each rotation.
Rhythm of footfall
becomes more insistent
faster and faster,
the manic gyration.

She, the hub at the heart of the wheel
dizzying at the slur of shifting colours
falls.
At the moment of recovery
she sees the figure lift its tunic
and spring from its midriff
a swaying serpent with a cyclops eye
purposing inchingly towards her.
Her scream petrifies everything
in that pastoral glade.
Past and future fuse
in the instant of panic
as her mind snaps tight.

IV

"Missing?
What do you mean, 'missing',
How can a teenage girl
for two hours in your charge
and in a protected glade
go missing?"

"Oh M'am you see
our senses were fuddled
with heat and wine,
Kore bored with our conversation
went to pick flowers
not ten yards from our homely circle,
we fell asleep,
and whilst in the arms of Morpheus
she strayed too far.
When we awoke, she was gone.
For hours we searched,
called and searched
but our echoes
brought nothing in return,
no swineherds or shepherds
were there to interrogate,
nor any living soul,
oh if only the rocks or trees
could speak,
they would tell us …

Demeter, her anger rising
hissed their dismissal
"Get out of my sight you lustreless drones,
drinking on duty
is a criminal transgression
punishable by death.
You will wait at our pleasure
For judgement and sentence
Guards take them away!"

Demeter alone moans,
berates herself:
"oh my daughter,
my beautiful daughter
where are you,
where are you?
I should never have
let you go."
and just as flamelight
when agitated by the wind
casts strange shadows,
so disturbing visions
invade the orderly tabernacle
of her mind and multiply:
mutilated and drowned corpses,
smiling serpents, faces disfigured
by the agonies of death.
'Soon her purpose is honed
To a single thought:
"I must find her."

V

On her face,
a spider forages, then
stops.
The young girl stirs. Her awareness, lies small and curled,
then slowly expands to her outer rim,
a perpetual aching bruise.
Strong musky smells pervade
and a cacophonous sound of dripping.

At first, she thinks: 'I'm trapped
in a gigantic shark's jaw.'
Then space gradually composes itself
in the taper's degraded glow.
She makes out the tips of stalactites
where water drops ripen, then fall
on the stalagmites rising from below
and oozing down all the walls,
a brackish arterial flow.

Images, at first too fast to fix
rush through her brain.
Then, as sediment in a river settles
and the water clears to reveal its features,
so the main events of the recent past
slowly shimmered back into her mind:
the picnic in the meadow,
the wine soaked conversations
of her friends and escorts and their sisterly warnings,
the dark shape emerging from the grass…

then blankness,

then the thought, 'I'm abducted',

and the terrible ache of loss.

Once up,
her hands frantically grope
at the cavern walls,
to find what her eyes cannot see,
some exit for escape.
Suddenly, a crack begins to enlarge itself,
as part of the rock face glides silently open
on a hinge.

"My master summons you,
come with me."

Hades could barely
contain his excitement,
'the tone, the tone
success lies in the tone,
as the rhetoriticians say.
Steady now, even keel,
just read it calmly
as though addressing a…'

Such musings were interrupted
by the entrance of Ascalaphus,
leading Persephone.
All his good intentions dispersed
as her beauty electrified him.
He fumbled nervously with the sheets
of his colour-coded speech,
so many long hours in composition,
and embarked faulteringly
on his peroration.

"Our passion will ignite the stars,
Tartarus welcomes you.
Great honour do you do me
by being here.
I hope you will regard
your permanent residence,
in the spirit intended,
as a compliment
I've long admired you
from afar.
The life of a judge
has a few compensations,
but is short on intimacy.
Besides, I've worked for years
to perfect my empire,
the buildings alone took aeons,
so many architects consumed.
As for the garden, well,
its a masterpiece,
though I declare it myself.
But what is missing,
is someone to share it with,
a woman's touch, your touch.
Oh, how I've longed
for your flesh's warmth
next to mine…

He trailed off, overcome,
bad syntax competing with bathos.

Chris comments.