The Woodward Post

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Poem: Adonis

What thaws in the heart of pain? 

What’s left in the death of Man?

Glorious Adonis, heir to a distorted nature, son of no mankind. 

Rival of Venus, you hath not stepped out of foams, 

Mortal yet both fathered by a hideous fate, ineluctable and blind. 

Matchless glamour, infinite youth! The golden domes

Of celestial pride wilt in wonder. Bearer of love, 

Connoisseur of pleasure, fettered by Proserpina’s demanding lust. 

Though the maiden of spring, her wintry breaths, imbued in the alcove

Of Hades with the imminence of death, smothered your burning chest. 

Ambition and beauty shed no nostalgic tears, and a musical dawn 

Brings quick end to fading dreams. Your glad captive, 

The enchanting Venus, villain by birth in loosened gown,

Now takes the seat of your God. And may she forgive 

The duel-sided passion, a furtive disgust you quench

With Proserpina in the bed of Death himself. 

But triumph to our radiant maker of love! You clench 

Onto the gauze of art, yet bother not for the multitudes of life, 

Less for chiseling your marks in the stretch of time—

A flint, stroke for sparks that dare equal bolts of thunder, 

Not fire. All conforms to the obsession in your prime. 

Earthly hunter, were you too, careless of the sick schemer 

Of death? Your thrusting spear could not impale 

The cold calculating foe, and anger swept, more than the seeping, 

Delicate love, tis what her nectar-balm couldn’t expel. 

Destined, youth leaps to ruin. None would stop her weeping, 

But the dear anemone. Will good rise from tragedy, we can never know. 

The floral scent of bloody red, suffocates the land and the world below. 

On your newborn petals, like an afterthought, arrogance dances with grace.

Your life runs in everlasting rivers and the world died in silence.