Goddess Avenged

(The legend goes that Hades,God of the Underworld,abducted His beloved Goddess Persephone and took Her to His abode before Her mother Demeter could do anything at all.Faced by the rage of the Goddess bereft of Her daughter and the insistence of His brother Zeus, He makes a show of releasing Persephone ,but not before making sure that the Goddess will have to return to His world anyway by having fed Her a pomegranate from His garden.It was a rule of the Fates that whosoever consumed any food or drink in the Underworld was doomed to spend eternity there.This forced Persephone to return to Hades for winter each year.

Persephone,thereafter,was the protectress of marriage,Her abduction and subsequent marriage to Hades serving as the emblem of marriage.

However, in this alternative version, Persephone refuses to relent and accept the trickery meted out to Her. She is fierce, rigid and unyielding when Hades comes to take Her to the Underworld at Fall’s end.Here’s what happens thereafter…..)

Never before, among the mortals or atop the Mighty Olympus, did the coruscating moon behold ;

The breath of beauty, the defiance of viability,

That walked the decaying Earth and left entrancing spells to be told ;

Eons passed and eternities dulled, fainting beneath Her fiery beauty ,

And there She only breathed her demeanour – The Daughter to Goddess Demeter

 

 

Through the breezes that caressed , the Goddess in her fullest glory ;

And through the grasses that convulsed in the ephemera of the Divine presence ,

She outshone every measure of beauteousness and tossed at the shreds of unearthly aurae ;

Out She reached for a virgin Lily, with her elegant sweep of hands to get at its fickle essence ,

Divine to Divine, Heaven to Earth, loomed the blazing starkness – Her pace was equalled, and surpassed by the Helm of Darkness

 

 

Bewitched and enraged, with the wrath of a Goddess, She whirled around ;

And spoke to the shadow She only knew well as Her damned suitor ,

” Heavens and Zeus will themselves have to answer, the Godly insolence with which you abound ;

Trust your instincts and speak on more, holding my modesty any mooter ,

Cursed are you and Hell will unfold, if to any test my gravitas you so hold ”

 

 

“Your vexation I find sweet, more than your poise, my Goddess cherished ;

And to this world and the World I rule,I can swear on my descent from Cronus,

The desire to see you so notwithstanding, I shall not invoke your ire to have me from your realm banished ;

I, Hades, your justful paramour, have come to claim what is but mine, truly awakened, equally vinous ,

The year has moved half of its course and a quarter added to it – my pursuit for you, therefore, stands befit

 

 

Appalled by the unvarnished narration and the truth of it that dawned on Her ;

She took, but a moment to compose, what was a tempestuous battle raging ,

That threatened to tear her soul apart, ravishing her gentle grandeur ;

And like Artemis come alive, She turned to the moon fading ,

There She blazed without fire, with anger the very zenith of dire – The Goddess Persephone

 

 

“You have violated me times before, but that is to it, and no more ;

I, may have been by your trick,fated, to give a part of me to you ,

But that is what you will get precisely, as much as I do you abhor ;

The part of me which is yours, you can kiss a fond adieu ,

Take in as much of it as is within your bounds ’cause I, henceforth wont ever enter your dismal grounds ”

 

 

With this the Goddess raised Her hands and in a voice resonating with aggravation ;

Invoked the Spirit of Hestia – the flames that leaped, the conflagration that covered Her ,

Through the inferno that prevailed, She saw and clinched at the God of Underworld in consternation ;

And suddenly in a placid tone, which was gravely sombre ,

She pleaded the Goddess of Fire to stab into shreds her ethereal soul, and to cleanse her spirit whole

 

 

 

The flames, in answer, growled and shrieked and unfurled and leaped – to the mighty God of Hell ;

Out of the fire, and of fire He saw His Goddess come to Him ,

And with an embrace and a touch searing She took Him to His Shades to dwell ;

An instant later, the flames died, casting a surreal glow all grim ,

Out she walked, yet again, the unfazed Goddess,truly blessed- shedding to torment Her part-consort for eternity,the fiery part of Her soul coalesced

Sublime

Love- a subject that enthralls several, haunts many and puzzles one and all.It has been said that love is never singular except in syllable and probably thats true.But then again, who can refute the adage which says “Trip over love and you will get up and out ; fall in love, and you will fall forever.”? Love knows no reason, rhyme, logic or limits and is a world in itself. Condemned by several, cherished by the lucky few and survived by the fewer still, it is an enigma,a cult, a creed- to explore, to revere, to worship and to follow.But it promises no favours, announces no incentives and can be cruel to the core.The story of Echo and Narcissus is one such moving tale of unrelenting love and the fate it meets.For those of you, who have not read it yet, here it is : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissus.

In the following piece of poetry, the spirit of Narcissus is reborn as the knight Aaron who is blindly in love with the most beautiful Lady of his times, Andromeda, unaware of the fact that her own best friend and companion Abigail,Echo incarnate, loves him with an unflinching love in life and death.On his insistence, Abigail arranges for his meeting with Lady Andromeda, dying a death in every single breath and moment while she does that.Andromeda, on the other hand, despises the knight on account of the fact that she knows that he loves her and it sickens her that he does so even though he is aware that Andromeda gives not a hoot to him.On this fateful night Aaron comes to her castle, she is possessed by Nemesis, the Goddess of Revenge and her hate for the knight intensifies multiple times.Heres the account of what follows :

 

 

Out burst the mantle of grim clouds, shrieked and shone Zeus in rage,

The conifers rattled beneath the flashes of fatal thunder, the hummocks shuddered ;

Torrents that deluged the gradients and gales that shook the plaintive bases, blasted in harmony their rampage,

The Night went all out, Artemis wavered ;

And loomed large the Castle of Lady Andromeda

 

 

Blazing, bewitching, blinding glory, a face shrouded in equal measures by wrath and grace,

A lady of virtues and vices, a kiss of death, sepulchre of a mirage ;

She stood and glowed on the keep of the castle, her locks and winds in close embrace,

Her ivory robe swirled and tossed, creating with the thunderbolts and the moon, a divine montage ;

And in her eyes,flickered and stagnated the vision of the man she waited

 

 

He was in the wind, and then at the mighty tower,

A flash of virility, a glimpse of fanciable visage ;

Radiating with each gallop of the stallion, sharp,shiny tendrils of power,

As he streaked to and made halt at the castle, glimmered his armour like some old forgotten adage ;

And the instant next, he ascended the keep – valiant Lord Aaron

 

 

Andromeda reached out, to give the audacious knight her hand, as if in command,

And thus spake she ” Thou dost come my lover, in pursuit of me and reachest my abode through this inferno barely ;

The ire of the heavens thou didst endure but who said,love, then, is a fair demand ?

Struck not by the shards of indifference, love is but the mightiest might, this i propose all bluntly;

But let this be known to thee, if two dont play at this game, doomed is the one who does so and lays his own altar at woe”

 

 

“Aeons ago, thou wert this hunter, born to Liriope and Cephissus, beautiful than the age itself,

Christened Narcissus and how truly, the foil to thy namesake flower – vain, haughty and disdainful ;

Thou didst love truly and faithfully, but none other than lowly thyself,

The love of Echo, for thee, eternal and forever eager, was never returned, tainting it disgraceful ;

She pined away,I adore her for that, thine love in her killed her, and Nemesis abhors thee for that ”

 

 

The knight, stunned and reminiscent,recalled with dread the dawn of the day,

Sheathed in gloom and an anxious countenance ;

Came to him the manner of Lady Abigail, devastated, in dismay,

As she bade him farewell, to the meet she herself had designed, her eyes spoke volumes of pure penance ;

How could he not see the love therein, how did he discredit the integrity of it, and the irony of calling love blind – a fatal flow, a mere habit

 

 

“And so thou meet thy Nemesis tonight, scorn and contempt and death at my side,

Thou offended love, and twice at that, and chose to run after deathly delusions ;

Foliage of love, if transformed into barbs of vengeance, only by rules of Ate abide,

Harken to thy Fates now, as they decree justice to love and grant thee thy final summons ;

The throes of a ravished heart, now will thou gauge and this blade of thy unrequited love will end thine days ”

 

 

As she spoke, she brandished the sabre and lunged at the throat of her errant suitor,

But before the iron could draw blood, out soared the poisoned arrow ;

Shot under the incensed eyes, and from the bow furious with anger,

Beauty unrivalled, charm deathly, rode her horse, Lady Abigail aglow ;

The walls thence turned scarlet as they were bound to be, with the life and blood of the Lady who ruled them a moment before mercilessly

 

 

” You speak of love Andromeda, and know nothing of it,

It seeks not revenge, nor redemption – well versed in how to burn or sublime ;

It completes itself and stands in both receipt and rejection equally befit,

Deriving its existence in itself, relishing on the slightest chime ;

A look, a nod , a smile or a word, Hatred, indifference, ignorance or forgetfulness are enough to keep it to its roots anchored ”

 

 

” He loves me or he loves me not, never did matter to me, nor it will,

In this lifetime, or the one I left behind, love was never a game, nor vocation for me ;

Not loving someone back or loving someone who loves you not is not a crime,but standstill,

It will pass, your love will not, uncorrupted if it stands by infatuation or envy ;

For as long as the Earth sustains hearts and humanity or the Olympus reigns above, there has been and there will be love………”

 

 

( Words fade as Abigail gives her hand to Aaron to help him stand, and they walk away from the castle holding hands in the torrential night.)