I always felt left out,
my sisters and brothers treating me
like I was an embarrassment.
They called me “the unseen,”
I was lonely, I admit it.

Poseidon and Zeus were the glamour boys
of the sea and heavens.
It didn’t help that Hera and Demeter
also fell for Zeus’ charms.

So what if I kidnapped Persephone,
tricked her into being my wife
a few months of every year?

She’ll come around.
Already I sense a softness.
And after all, what else have we got here
besides time?

 Charles Rammelkamp

 

Charles Rammelkamp lives in Baltimore. His latest book, Fusen Bakudan (“Balloon Bombs” in Japanese), was published in 2012 by Time Being Books. It’s a collection of monologues involving missionaries in a leper colony in Vietnam during the war. A chapbook is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press titled Mixed Signals.

Artwork:  Abigail Larson, “Hades and Persephone II”
Website: http://www.abigaillarson.com

 

28 Aug This entry was published on August 28, 2014 at 12:05 am and is filed under 8 (August 2014), Archive, Poetry. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.