Member-only story
(a misplaced dream)
poetry
O be, for art thou the heavens of Sophocles
Drawn together by the slings of misfortune
An uninspired universe to behold
Neither victim nor tyrant
Of which hath cast thee asunder
To fathom her unnerving oceans
Wide glorious where sinks a weary soul.
Betrayed by the dimming orb beyond
A serendipitous moon
Its tides drawn only by a seething cadence
On cue, but unfound
Its nature confounded not by the ineptitude of its flight
But the light of its own reflection
Inviting the enslaved to bask in the misery of its glow
Like a figment of a misplaced dream
As dust strewn across the ancient shores.
Is Pythia’s prophecy not shaped beneath the same silvery light
Emersed to eke out its calamitous course
Emboldened by Apollo’s truth
Captured in the cadence of that tidal sway
And if I return like those warring brothers to Thebes at its seventh gate
As transcribed by Sophocles’ guiding hand
Or high up upon Delphi, near Apollo’s side
Will I again be welcomed by her mysteries
Or forsaken, to remain forever in her despair
