Cassandra
Look at me! Listen to me!
I speak but I am speechless.
I talk but you refuse to hear.
They say this is the destiny
of sensible women: to talk
but to remain unheard.
My words are not poisonous,
yet feverish and delirious
because I ache to be heard.
I am mad at you men
falling at the feet of faces
who launched a thousand ships.
What is beauty compared to
sense? What is appearance
compared to substance?
I coil around your insubstantiality.
My hair like flaming spires. The
cathedral of me in a desert
of silence and raging madness.
I will talk to the winds. They have
far better ears than yours,
O men…
Labyrinthine Love
“Theseus has not returned yet.
He must be tangled up in all
that thread somewhere in there,”
thought Ariadne
“He lost himself, as men often do.
I bet he will turn back, forget
bull-headed monsters and
kill maidens instead,” I
say
Poor Ariadne has held
her thread and she still does
as still as a statue, as loyal
as a dog.
“That doesn’t do you good.
Where is your reward?
Did he promise you eternal
Love, the unfaithful
bastard? He did. But, look! He is
fleeing. And, you will still be
there holding your faithful, red
thread of insanity over the
sunburnt plains of Crete.”
