Poetry
By Persephone Vandegrift
For Edmund 869 AD
A belated valentine
Son of East Anglia,
my heart still breaks over the loss of you.
I know you,
and I know what they did,
saw them coming through the trees,
heard the hooves thundering.
I saw you
chained;
your chin pressed against your chest,
hands wrapped around the trunk of that tree.
You called out to me
but I could not reach you in time.
Until a thousand years later.
You parted my dream
and I stepped through,
stepped inside you.
The four Danes rode hard
as the apple blossoms screamed in the wind.
We lifted our head.
The sun was shining.
It was a good day for death
but not a fitting end for a King.
Red tunics.
Black horses.
The axe on the right was raised high.
The flash of light on the blade
blinded us both.
Beheaded.
But not forgotten.
I will find you again in my dreams.
Arria’s Final Speech to Her Husband, Caecina Paetus, on the Night of Her Death, 42 AD
I can not force you husband,
but what Gods do not conspire
to see the glorious ending of devoted
subjects upon their own swords?
There they are now, standing
shoulder to shoulder; the sway
of their golden robes fixed
on our final breaths together.
So let us remain here, until the sun
sets and rises in our hearts no more.
Let us keep Their divine eyes upon us!
Caecina, shaper of my heart,
I fall upon this dagger for you.
Wherever it shall cut, there you will be.
No matter what shape the wound takes,
I care not. Let Them see how you spill
from me like Ambrosia! Let Them see
how you have always lived inside of me!
See here, husband, it does not hurt.
Our son is much stronger now teasing
Pluto’s hounds and our daughter covets
my role of which she is well deserving.
She has our noble mark upon her
tho’ she weeps for the death we seek.
My love, do not leave me adrift
in this conviction! Have the strength
to lift this same dagger to your breast!
Soon none of these walls will matter.
I promise you, Senators, wars,
and emperors will all disappear.
Come husband, strike deep
so that together we will cross
the River Styx into Elysium
and sleep forever on the banks
of the Isle of the Blest .
Revolutionary Requiem
And you know he drinks a little
to kill the fear when it rises up inside.
All for the glory,
freedom’s why he signed.
It made him feel
like an apostle walking on water;
“Don’t fire boys till you see the whites of their eyes!”
He lets himself wander down
his hall of atrocities,
where his only consolation
is the pungent memory
of plunging his rifle into the guts
of any Red Coat nearby.
As the sound of the cannons
pound against his chest,
his shoulders shudder
and his stomach tightens.
His eyes sting from the bodies
burning down in the Valley,
where shouts of despair from both sides
plead for futile neutrality.
Even the scalping natives take many lives.
For promises made, land is given;
it is for the homeland each of them fight.
Ah, then he sees her!
At the door to their cabin,
his cracked lips part with a sigh.
She is smiling. She is breathing once more.
There’s color in her cheeks
and her golden hair is cascading.
How he loved to watch it fall
between his earth soaked fingers.
But that was before the Red Coats
were coming and the frontier was safe.
Now she sleeps forever,
with their infant son and daughter
next to Otsego Lake.
Still, he gives in to his hallucination
and reaches out for the hem of her skirt.
With sorrowful eyes she steps back
and whispers,
“Not this time, my love, you have work to do yet”
If he was Greek, this would be Elysium,
into its fields he would fall.
A Viking; Valhalla, next to his father’s kin
he would stand tall.
But he is neither. Nor will he pretend
to be anything other
than the glory filled soldier
who fought so diligently.
And you know he drinks a little,
to dream of times gone by,
when the world was full
of savage wonder,
and treaties were not used
as peacemaking concubines.
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Persephone Vandegrift (Seattle, WA), is a produced playwright and an award-winning poet and short fiction writer. When she is not living off pomegranate seeds, she can be found at several open mic poetry and fiction readings around Seattle. Her first short fantasy story, "The Maiden Tree", will appear in Moon Drenched Fables in March 2009,. In October and November 2008, she took first prize in both the Poetry and Fiction competition at Notes and Grace Notes. Upcoming publications include a poetry and short fiction appearance in Notes and Grace Notes first anthology, Root Exposure. Previous publishing credits include In Travel Magazine, Indite Circle, Megalithic Blogspot and Remark Poetry. Her current project is a collection of short stories based on the Greek myths. She can be contacted at persephone.v.writes@gmail.com.