Tag: Persephone | Mediterranean Poetry

Steven H. Bridgens, Born: 17 August 1949, Kansas City, Missouri | Death: 30 January 2017, high noon | Resurrection: 12:07 pm, that very day.

Publications:

Poetry:

The Hobo Bob Cantos, Spartan Press 2024

Strange Beauty Shows, Spartan Press, 2016

Poetry Compilations:

39 Feet & Rising, The Gasconade Review, 2017

Finding Zen in Cowtown, Spartan Press, 2017

Reporting:

Pomona Magazine, 1980

The Futurist, 1979

Horticulture Magazine, 1978

RAIN, 1977

Handbook for Practical Action, 1974

All Now Sunk And Long Ago Gone

I started hearing stories about the sea long ago,
about the Phoenicians sailing everywhere, fearlessly,
in their little lateen-rigged ships of olive wood
and Syrian cedar, trading with the lost tribes.

And I heard about Ulysses and the long journey home
after his mythic little war. And Aeneas and Jason.
I heard about them.

They shipped out, too, leaving Troy and Carthage
in flames behind them.

I heard about Cleo and Tony, the young lovers.
It didn’t turn out so well for them at sea, as I recall.

Those crazy kids, thinking they could get one over
on the evil empire. They almost had it made until
she turned tail at Actium.

Then, after sailing home to Alexandria, she took the
ring’d asp to her breast as her dreams of empire fell
apart.

She abandoned poor Tony to twist endlessly in that
dry Egyptian wind, that still blows in from blind old
Homer’s wine dark sea.

And, as I said, the big ships with those big guns, like
the thousand that Menelaus sent to Troy after Helen,
that little bitch, are all now sunk, and long ago gone,

like me, forever trapped, burning and drowned
in your tawny, tiger eyes.

Cavafy Knew

for Constantine Cavafy, (1863-1933)

Cavafy knew they were there all along.
He felt them every step of the way,

through his seaside town. He walked over
hidden tombs of ancient buried Kings
& Queens.

He knew somehow, when others didn’t,
not exactly where, but he was haunted

by Cleopatra, who’s now been discovered
sleeping nearby.

Caesarion is there, too: near his Mother,
beneath a shabby side street, off Rue Fuad.

He was there all along, great Caesar’s only son,
resting: hidden, long buried & forgotten.

The poet’s footsteps echo through the city,
he sleepwalks every day over the Queen
& her child,

under the burning sun, the bright full moon,
planets named for gods.

Another Mythic Spring

It’s nearly spring again here in our part of the world, and me, Acteon,
I’ll be happy to see Persephone freed from Winter’s bondage at last.
Her nails and lips, no doubt, colored her favorite pomegranate red.

This morning daffodils and jonquils have lifted their heads, hopeful,
up through the soil, towards the sun god, Helios, sensing good news.

My mastiffs sniff all around as they follow me down the wooded path
through these wooded hills. They feel it too.

Spring seems to have emerged from the earth this very morning.
But wait. There’s laughter and splashing just over this hill.

Can you hear it? It must be Spring.