Tears of the Nymph

By Poet for Places, Kira Nelson

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Tear from her breast what she most holds dear
Tears of the nymph drained dry through fear
Children mine, soaked in blood wine
A sacrifice to stem a rake’s demise
Ripped away in screaming silence
To deplore my loss without ceremony
My Atlantis sank beneath the tides
My hero entombed beside me
Locks and chains both drowned to appease
The god who prays for my ills
I signed his page, my life was claimed
To settle scores reaped from sorry council wars
He stole away my birthright and I
Succumbed to deathly canker sores

We were once abed with greatness
Riches won from kings, then lost to paupers
Scenes of the gala, of higher battle and balls
Emblazoned our walls, our gilded funeral shroud
Green-eyed maidens whose gowns swept our halls
Turned keen-eyed vultures gathered at clean carcass
While I watched, heart wrung out, a prideful joy scorned
The gorgon’s eye conquered
Beneath stone skin, I mourned

Chained to these reefs I lie in state
I am Andromeda, we were Prometheus
Raked raw by talons, our eagle overseer
Now devours what it can, leaves angels for dead
They gather my pieces from sodden soil
Where echoes rang of revelries long ended
Where we danced our holy melancholy
Now we, the vermin, remain at song’s end
Poseidon’s victory achieved
Cast headlong into Hades’ maw
Our sigil, my heartache’s enduring legacy
The snakes limp rags in eagle’s jaws

Torn from my breast what I most held dear
Tears of the nymph, stalactites of yesteryear
They dried in the flames, rotted as the grot breathed last
Andromeda remains, chained at half mast
I sleep eternal, conjoined with earthly blood
Congealed, unhealed, worn away in time’s flood
For my life, O Athene, I have no love
Save my daughter and my sons
Paint my embrace in distant skies
And let it brighten their lives to come