Unheroic Interlude

 The nine sisters won't play with me

so I'm counting on you, gray-eyed 

and far-seeing, to remember me.

Where I left my heroine, she was

cooling her heels in the Land of the Dead.

She'll live (you knew that) 

because Immortals do.

It's what they were fated to.

And as for me, I guess I'll live, too,

if I can figure out my way.

We are skipping from the Middle East to

the Mediterranean, (I've been--have you?

I've seen the rock and the hard place where my 

epic crimson forbear found himself adrift.)

And here's where you find me.

Crafty one, send an owl. Whisper in my ear.

Get my stupid ass out of here. 

Here I am: not in the dark of the Underworld,

but in the bright light of day, 

chained to a mountain of bullshit,

vultures gnawing at my ever-renewing 

last living fuck.  

The mountain is my own bullshit,

the vultures exist in my mind,

and the chains are those I forged in life,

whatever the Dickens that means. 

And I am not sure how to stop torturing me.

Forgive my language--my greatest fault.

The Church never grabbed me, but myth

gave me a baptism in fire, not water.

Spiritual things have always been my

Achilles' heel. So as to my Promethean liver complaint

(I think I will turn yellow now from turmeric,

not backed-up bile) 

I remember the lesson quite well:

No good deed goes unpunished.

So it happened I did myself a little favor

and stole back some part of the sands of time.

(Tighter security than golden apples or

fleece ever knew, I can tell you!)

In my hubris, I gave up my name. 

I've been fury-hounded ever since,

incapable of acting my age.

And now I'm in time-out.

Anyway, ask a favor from the universe

and know, Godfather-like,

a favor will be asked of you

and you will not have a choice.

(Well, you do. If you are not too

particular about your entrails/)

I have to earn back my name

without guile (though lying is my

mercurial art)

because all my words will fail.

No joke.

Now, let me play the Trickster, turn my form

from straw to golden livery

and let me work on my delivery,

and were it not tethered in place,

the Blarney Stone itself would come

to kiss my shameless ass.

When I want to, I can bend the string

of the lyre and bring tears from

a basalt Sphinx or set fire to ice.

I could raise the dead! It's nice:

But it won't work this time.

For all my crimes, I will have

my tongue tied behind my back,

and need the one thing I lack--

any ring of authenticity, 

A borrowed reflection on a pair of wine-dark eyes

has been my only saving grace,

but having seen my Gorgon reflection 

I am frozen in place.

No better than some Celtic stone.

Merciful Minerva--I can't do this alone!

But let me get back to my other self

where I last left her hanging around,

She was going to arise.

Maybe so will I.