Andromeda, on the Rocks
What were you thinking at that moment? Here
you were waiting for the whale—like Jonah,
only without hope of rescue, not a
chance of redemption. Wind, waves drawing near
with threats to swallow—did you clench in fear
against those bonds? Or in crisis own a
fragment of yourself in courage? Born of
a mother too prideful, did you shed a tear?
And now a mother of six! Did you tell
your children of their father’s valiant grace,
his flight on Pegasus, his baser, fell
tactics against your fiancé? Some trace
remains in tales and stars, in each seashell
echoes your struggle; nothing can erase.
David M Pitchford 041007
This marks me as a bit of a Neoclassicist—or at least a poet with characteristics of such. I think my entire artistic self began with myth. It started with the Bible (not as myth), and then kicked in with Ms. Brenda reading the Tales of Ulysses for us in second grade. I’ve since read a great deal of mythology (and created a bit of my own). Enjoy the poem. Please comment if so moved. I’ve actually coined a term for the poetic work I’m doing here as: zenoneoclassicism (and new and slightly different take on the classics in that I am at the heart of me a Romantic, and yet have the rational love of reason and order the classics evoke and uphold).
The Painting is Edward Poynter’s 1869 version of Andromeda chained for the Kraken
paint it iambic 