The camera dipped as I stared

Seeing a sweet seraphim, with icy eyes

That drooped with all the whispered secrets

That spill from the mountains to the 

Bottomless depth of his soul.

I’ll bring out the laughter that make

The harps sound hollow when played.

Ah, the sculpture stands stricken

And the artist throws his brushes

And the birds go death taciturn silence

And the wind stops his gentle sway

And the trees start murmuring his name

Laden with honey and sunshine but truant of love.

I’ll love him he said

As softly as he wonders I’ll desperately follow. 

And I’ll chase after the shadows that offer a trace of his sigh.

And butcher the serpents that slither

In his head or feet only to torment,

But he’ll slip with Hermes to the underworld

Deceiving me of our eternity;

For he is my Ares and Aphroditus.

If only he knew

I’ve acquired all of him, 

Yet he does not perceive.

His days loitering the streets as

As an uncaged bird to the

Melody of his quicksilver feet.

Yet only if he knew;

Only if he knew.

He’ll know soon of my devotion 

As I lull him to my abode.

He’ll know soon of my proclivity 

As I barred the entrance and the views of the sky.

His adoration will recrudesce

As his crisp trepidation will fade.

He discerns now.

Moving his sweet limbs quick to music in a dance

He’d waned from my espy.

Though I procured him before he set

His feet on the virulent vines, olive trees.

So, he danced instead on the weed-choked field

Away from the peril and in my vicinity; for he’s

My Patroclus and I cannot let him elapse away

A plain without a feature, bare and brown,

As the maroon spread like a flame.

I plunged into oblivion leaving my Philtatos (most beloved)

I peered as he irrevocably danced onto the

Vines and the trees, away from safely of his

Well- aimed stone, as I plunged into the 

Shuddering River of Styx; 

For I was the beast imprisoning the beauty.

Who would tell the boy it was untrue for

His captor was not a beast but a heavenly being.

They lived a life of bliss and love

Among the old decent folk,

Where bored officials lounged cracking jokes

Between the mass and majesty of this world all,

That carries weight and always weighs the same.

Lay in the hands of other, they were small

And could not hope for help and no help came:

What their foes like to do was done, their shame

Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride, their tradition, their culture.

And died as men before their bodies died.

Of any world where promises were kept,

Or one could weep because another wept

So the serpent slides slowly away with his moments of laughter

But the bamboo hangs heavy in the bondage of quicksilver daydreams

For an innocent life was forfeited from hubris (pride)

Thoughts elicited from Lyssa, goddess of rage herself.

For dreaming of an eternity with anyone but a woman

Would be considered a sin, a crime enough for a hateful death.

Owed to their culture (a vulture), their traditions, their community

Fated like Achilles and Patroclus they were,

“And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.”