With no sunlight, the place resembles the Cimmerians’ land; <br />I walked the staircase down where they live in endless night; <br />a tide of youngsters carried me away to the gate of Hades, <br /> <br />to a bar, underground; I made with her a libation of whisky, <br />was alike a dead, other girls with red eyes approached us, <br />she moaned: 'they brought me as unburied dead; take me <br />out, stranger, send me home, let me be buried as human’. <br />I swore to buy her body for one night and then set her free. <br /> <br />'You’re a good guy’, said Agamemnon, a drunk customer, <br />‘watch out women; my spouse revenged me for my error'. <br />Client Tiresias foretold: 'You’ll reach your lovable home! ' <br /> <br />Then, in a corner, I saw a pale woman same as my mom. <br />How come she is here, a maid in an underground bar? <br />In smoke and darkness she seemed dead. 'My child' says <br />'so many years, here, I missed you starving and suffering' <br /> <br />Three times I tried to approach but her shape escaped me, <br />a shade of a dream; inaccessible to hug her with my arms, <br />my words were birds she couldn’t catch. She lisped 'nekyia, <br />our bones are fleshes without nerves; the fire tames us all.' <br /> <br />Yet her soul was flowing as a dream and was laughing; <br />even Achilles, the chief gang of the bar, would envy her, <br />for he would like to live on earth a modest life as my mom. <br /> <br />'Son, return home, safe', wished me, 'my life is your history'. <br />Then I ascended the stairs to go find the smoke in the light. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />© JosephJosephides<br /><br />Joseph S. Josephides<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/rhapsody-descending-down-to-hades/
