4
one hundred heads hydra
I. triumph
his father sends him along a winding path, near green brush,
upon the swift, sharp air of alpine meadows.
he trusts that dad, forthright, should advise him
explicitly of nature's pitfalls – its treacheries,
snares preceding man's traps, their crafty interventions.
Pontifex wraps his right hand around a large, straight,
branch staff, like Hermes wielding the caduceus staff,
walks near a clearing, his presence stilling leaf chatter.
light footsteps. the grassland returns respect, gentle.
Pontifex makes the cross over a bog bridge.
he can't help but drift back to visions
of father sauntering his very touch
proof of when love felt victorious,
when shafts of light – rays –
caressed his every stalking movement.
but Pontifex knows nature favours both love and hate:
halos and hellmouths blend indiscriminately,
hell's bells exist, synonymous
as knocks on heaven's door.
however, he figures his soul must side with either.
he ventures, gathers flour ingredients
behind fields of lithe, fierce hydras sneering –
Aconite, Indian Monkshood, Wolf's Bane.
one hundred hydra heads writhe, moist, poisonous, purple,
each mouth boasting a fine, fatal bite –
cerberus' or chimera's same imitative faces, fibrous,
on twisted, turned, green serpents' bodies.
vertical snakes morph into tiny stems.
lion's manes or goat, snake, or hydra heads
are really flower bulbs, small and droopy.
Pontifex believed father would guard and protect
him forever. instead, getting thrown before
the lions was unavoidable. although,
he doesn't expect harm from prairie so bucolic.
asthma attack –
his heavy, laboured breaths
signal he might have gotten
close and swallowed aconite
residue, affecting his face, his mouth,
his ribcage, and his heart. he envisions
circadian rhythm arrested at Hades' gates,
gut-punch intestinal infection,
organs falling asleep, permanent paralysis,
heartbeat flutters, shivers, cold sweat – mind vertiginous.
he thinks, maybe the good always die young.
the plants' jaws tense, fierce, screeching, screaming.
he feels his strong bowels turn over.
open mouth. bile-foamed teeth? but, it's nothing,
a false alarm.
Pontifex went there bearing not a sword but a scythe.
folklore tells of hydra heads regenerating from only one.
so he thoroughly deploys slash-and-burn cultivation,
first removing the poisonous plants at their stems.
scythe slices stem bases. purple
heads are heaved in his back's slung basket
he snips and tosses plants shoulder-length.
Pontifex bends his knees – collecting felled aconite.
removing cerberus guarding the underworld gates means
uprooting aconite stems, where souls supposedly fall
down the roots, transporting to Hades. Pontifex
senses the soul-cesspool thrusting hands from hell,
attempting to rip him down beneath gravesites, have
his Spirit swim amongst underworld inhabitants.
get sucked in – drain down that wet sinkhole.
instead, he drops stems in the basket,
then lights arrows.
set aflame, the field rises in holy smoke.
he surges – drowns – that overgrown place in rose
flame. poison won't burn his body.
yet when he confronts danger, who watches over him?
an angel hovered over the blade, his right shoulder blade.
a subtle angel influenced his conscience, right
where his earthly father couldn't intervene
(truth be told: his dad was more democratic than moral).
she, the angel, stood guard, set him straight, upright,
taught him harm identification, and signs of ill-intention,
step-by-step, little by little, all along the way.
II. reminisce
his angel was present, too, unimposing,
when he worked at the bakery, waiting
for loaves to develop – kneaded bread to rise.
he fumbled the ring on his index finger,
as he fantasized about a romantic partner.
countertops reflected contained lustre.
he aspired to husbandry – tilling
crop lines, and watching herds closely –
idyllic innocence, as the bread loaf rose.
sprouts of sentiment took hold and grew.
he had no one of the world to call his own.
it was absurd explaining that making bread –
dwelling, waiting, then longing – changed
his heart to essentially titanic proportions,
full, swollen, synchronized, and generous.
as the bread-making business prospered,
it ran out of regular stock.
he hustled through the woods wanting
to mix parts for new, surplus loaves.
someone scurried in foliage –
half man, half goat, hairy Pan? no.
awestruck, he caught sight of her,
after he sliced aconite.
it was the first time he really fell in love
although he'd taken lovers before,
but never understood the bond.
that was short-lived. she shrugged him away.
he saw the pretty sweetheart take a suitor
in shade, merge their wallowing waters,
heard her melodious, moans of pleasure
while he smelled ripe, sweet, bloomed
nectar on the warm breeze.
wild forest Queen, her crown was wide,
gaped, having already accommodated
many upcoming young kings.
one hundred hydra heads and counting
had penetrated her – entered her openness.
heads kept emerging like generative grammar
in hellmouth nymphomaniac Larissa
and her purple, infected, vagina dentata.
he wouldn't dip his scythe in the poison.
not to trivialize hero stories but the difference
between life and death is usually miniscule.
one wrong turn – a bad decision – leads to heaps of trouble.
but then miracles save lives: improbable outcomes
produced from the muck and mire.
and although Pontifex yearns to resume life as
a baker, he can't, seeing many more
chimeras on the glowing horizon.
here, he lays down some inspired verse,
writes it all up on loose leaf,
releases the lines, spent, light-headed,
so the guiding wind might
carry his story away.