The blood red earth weighs
heavily upon me.
Blood red earth
stained still darker with my blood, unceremoniously
molded into a sacred mound,
African dirt, earth of my ancestors,
shaped by the stained hands of my judge
stained by my lifeblood
cursed hands of my wife.
In a trance
Klytemnestra, thirsty for justice, struck
once, twice,
thrice,
and her pain was avenged.
And now upon the freshly shaped earth
Electra flings down her youthful frame, convulsing
with sobs, but deprived
by her mother, violently flung back
once, twice,
thrice,
and Klytemnestra shrieks “avert your eyes!”
Don’t look, Elektra, lest fury consume you.
But you come as once you came
safe in my arms, cradled now
upon my red grave.
Will you, my daughter, avenge me?
In my blood you are baptized into hate,
fueling the fires of cyclical revenge
whose ashes would bury us all.
July 8, 2011 at 9:22 pm |
I really enjoyed the continuity of the imagery of blood that was used throughout the poem- it was a nice constant, yet you presented it in new and fresh ways. Your rhythmn was also well written; it made it flow nicely.
I was just a little thrown off by the change in tense in the second stanza, and the change in addressing Electra at a distance and then directly.