Living With The Shadow of Death

Antigone

The Life Not In My Hands

I lean my head into the palm of my hand, where your head would lay and my memories would entwine with those you left so suddenly — behind

Imprinted on the life line, cut directly — two halves, on one side I hold onto those that weigh my hand with, ‘if’s’ and ‘why’s’ on the other the weight tips the scale with the ‘finality’ this life gifted to me a lesson.

I remember, remember, if I could only drown my memories in an inch of water — the no’s, I screamed in place of your name, fell asleep within my empty embrace

My laden feet took to flight on the wings of Hermes to reach you — I ran as I threw my dignity off the cliffs of the Mesogeios

I ran, I ran — I ran and the diaphanous pleats of my dress ran into a blackness reigning — I’m still running

This hand, my left struck your chest, willing my breath to breathe for you, my breath journeyed to the abode of the dying sun and back — why did god not pluck my eyes out, throw them into the vastness of the seas,

That my vision not ever see such devastation, my devastation— my eyes, my eyes , my god, my god— anathema the day — my eyes a Promethean metaphor and death — the only running footman, ran alongside the web fate spun on the looms of my eyes, their darkness rarely recognizes the sun I once worshipped

This hand, my right that stole the stars from your eyes, to light the nights of my memories forgotten summers, as I solemnly shut yours— eternity blinded me, binding me to her world, forever

These hands, these useless hands, aghhh both, that held my head in disbelief, I raged — ANTIGONE!

I ripped through the darkness that befell, shading the sunlight of my cloth, and there a bathykoplian devastation, sojourned through the rivers of my sea an Argonaut — I ripped at my hair, and you, you raised the hand I lay my head against, as my unborn memories said farewell.

My hand, these hands whispered over you, I searched for you in the eyes you vacated and their I saw the prophecy of my years, my hands could not bring you back — ANTIGONE?,these hands, how many shall I bury, bury me — beneath the shade of my wounded heart?

My eyes rest against my hand where your head would rest and my tears entwine with our memories, where winter springs a psithurism on the autumn that reposes in my soul and summer gone never returns the same, again

What are you doing in the land of no dreams, where fire rages with no earthly winds, where shadows soulless know nothing of the epics of my love, what?

Does your head rest where my head would lay, on the psalm on your palm, our memories entwined on the miracle of a kiss?

My eyes, my eyes are damned— I wish I could see you— but my eyes can only see as far as my palm, where our memories entwined, slip through the hourglass that contain the sands of my time, for however long it may be— I run and the footman runs besides me, beneath the archways of sand—

Without him, my eyes as cursed as yours — And they called her — ANTI-GONE!

Copyright ©. R Tsambounieri Talarantas. 2020. All Rights Reserved.