Tormented Tryst: Hybrid Prose Poem

Who Drives You to the Page: lovers of myth

We’ll be going down so deep The river’s going to weep And the mountain’s going to shout Amen! — Cohen, “Democracy”

Surrendered just to below the flesh — that’s a grip I tell you — like a Hero or Leander swimming over the channel to get into a bed

jerking covers, rejecting clothing — the slap of waves on hulls, on shoulders, on the counting down the seconds to the touch — when all is supposed to be darkness but a moon can frighten that away— while freezing in the black water reaching for a bare half-kilometer but failing even at that —

and you want to talk about it — or to it and you want to hang medals onto the lingering smell of dialogue — but you’ve forgotten what you’d say

in case it comes skin to skin — in case the water leaves us with nothing but shivering spirits and transcendental touch — but the moon has gone away and the ships are fucking cruel — are hiding the lace that would have guided me right to your beach — where I would fall like I’ve fallen before — where the sand can’t grasp me the way you do —

arms stretch arms can’t deal with one more wave and then the morning has become this tormented thing — crying over a grave

— if it comes to this, love, if it doesn’t happen tonight — my heart came with me into the sea and I swallowed you as I went down.

J.D. Harms 2022

Those orient cheeks and lips, exceeding his
That leaped into the water for a kiss
Of his own shadow and, despising many,
Died ere he could enjoy the love of any.

Hero and Leander by Christopher Marlowe

Prompt:

Though the story of Hero and Leander has floated somewhere in the depths of my subconscious for a while, it wasn’t till earlier this year when, at the Victoria Art Gallery in Melbourne, I encountered a painting that made me go and look up the myth. Hero and Leander were lovers, separated by the Hellespont (today, the Dardanelles), a narrow strip of water separating Sestos and Abydos (just over a kilometer wide at its narrowest point); Leander would swim across to meet Hero, his lover, until one night when he drowned in the crossing.

I don’t know about you, but the myths more-or-less constantly supply me with material. Okay…well, I suppose given the responses to past prompts concerning myths, I do know how inspiring they are to you as well.

In the last year, I’d been reading Joseph Campbell’s analysis of the monomyth in Hero With A Thousand Faces. In the similarity between the human struggle and the struggle of heroines/heroes, supernatural or otherwise, it’s easy to see why we identify with these stories from thousands of years past. In fact, we keep recreating their fundamental plots: we keep seeing ourselves (or what we’d like to see of ourselves) in them.

For today’s prompt, I’d like you to take a myth and rework it as if you were one (or all) of the characters. I’ve (rather loosely) taken Hero and Leander’s ill-fated tryst, the last of their intended meetings. However, as I’ve done, you’re welcome to introduce your work with a citation from something more modern, if you wish. Tag me in it and rock on!

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