Merlin's Cave

[rowens]

Merlin's Cave


Love-cursed is right;
you didn't do it; 
least not the cursed part.

No, you are no gorgon,
not even close. 

I always wonder how anyone ever made it through
your walls.

And how many defeated their head on the out-
side 

I feel I am walled up
inside your wall.
I can't go forward and I can't go backward.
And every direction I turn, I'm surrounded by your absence.

Does Anteros with his inverted arrows
satisfy, being turned to stone?

All I see beyond a scorched forest of the Impossible,
my drive and goal,
Love, even more impossible.

I might as well believe in God.

[dukealien]

This is wonderful, as usual (when you're "on").  Had to look up Anteros - useful deity, stings me daily.

As for Merlin... which was his imprisoner, Vivien, Nimue, or Morgana?  What long thoughts he thought, vitrified in his own mind... but I also like T. H. White's take:  Merlin tells Arthur (to his confusion, as usual) that, living backwards, he's well aware of how he's going to be trapped.  And, he confesses, "rather looking forward to it."

It's a good feeling, isn't it, breaking up with a girl?  Even if you see her again in some later year and she gives you a white feather on Mafeking Night?  Anteros' arrows must be fletched with them...

[rowens]

This is the Surfaceside. The Sewer "Work" is the Nightside.

[Bunx]

I have came back to this poem like over 5-6 times since you posted it. Definitely one of my favorites of yours. This is one of those poems that if I saw in crit I wouldn't give much feedback in fear of messing up a great piece. The thing I do love about alot of you're writing is the references and how much there is to learning within a poem that is completely relatable.
Thanks for the read

[rowens]

A trick with using stock figures and popular characters is that you can write about yourself without mentioning yourself.
And, when you do mention yourself, you are a hero as an ant among greater heroes, and if the poem works, you are a Romantic.

Beyond the hero, beyond the shaman.
Da DaDa Da Da Da