ManicDDaily

When Low

I follow as fish whose lip has been caught.
‘Follow,’ I say, but flop flatter than him–
he, who pants hard with lungs he’s not got,
as eyes, like rolled marbles, marl rather than dim.

I can’t strike ahead, but trail as a shade
might shadow the living, one of those ghosts
who tracks Proserpine throughout Hades’ glade,
as if her curls’ currents will dwarf Lethe’s flows,

for quick and lithe even life’s keratin lies
compared to a spirit that flickers like stone,
this spirit I bangle in bright ribbons, dyes,
trying to tangle its bass undertone

with hues and translucence, with light seen through lawn,
the stranded weave tight, though seams are long gone–

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Don’t ask me what it means!  This was written for Bjorn Rudberg’s prompt on Real Toads to write a sonnet using a series of rhyming end words.  (The specific words were given by Bjorn.  I have used them all and in the correct sequence, though Bjorn said we could use homonyms and slant rhymes, so I’ve substituted ghosts for goes; a slant homonym.  Ha!)

PS – vague process notes–lawn a type of tightly woven fabric like linen; Lethe a river to the underworld whose waters cause forgetfulness; Proserpine, the Roman name of Persephone–goddess (daughter of Demeter)  who spends six months of the year each year in the underworld after having been stolen by Hades (Pluto) and eaten a kernel of pomegranate there; keratin–what hair is made of!   The picture is a photo of a sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum in New York–I am sorry –don’t know the details of the sculpture; photo is mine; all rights reserved. 

Pps– I am joking when I say I don’t know what it means– I don’t know how others interpret any poems but I tend to be pretty specific (if sometimes obscure) in terms of what I am getting it!