David Selzer is a writer of poetry, prose fiction, screenplays and stage plays. He embraces digital platforms to share his work of more than fifty years… READ MORE


  • PERSEPHONE

    What a work memory is – fecund,

    abeyant, arcane!  How apparently

    dormant, inconsequential images

    awaken, seemingly unbidden!

     

    I am fifteen, climbing the steep steps,

    two at a time, from the Underground

    to the street –  on a sunlit, London

    October morning. I look up. Beginning

    to descend, carefully, from the gentle light,

    is a young woman,  heavily pregnant.

     

    She has become a persistent stranger,

    replete with promise – unrealised,

    as yet and forever.

     

     

     

     


     


    5 responses to “PERSEPHONE”


    1. Laurie Corzett Avatar

      Approaching Winter

      Twinkling lights. I remember twinkling,
      clouds resplendent awaiting snowfall.
      It’s Persephone’s time below,
      growing in power, regality.
      Friend to post-living souls,
      hearing their stories,
      sharing her own,
      from the above time.

      Flitting about,
      we sing seasonal phrases,
      sweat anxiously in crowded malls
      over inner demands for a never
      remembered perfection.
      Children standing in awe below
      magnificence of glowing giant trees.
      Cities return to primal forest
      for an imaginary season.
      Telling ourselves our stories that
      Santa might find us worthy
      of that shiny plaything that will
      make us all right, make us happy.
      Happy little children, so Mama
      and Papa might be proud,
      stop fighting,
      tell us happy children stories,
      take us back to the Garden.

      Deep below, Persephone combs
      her silken hair, long tangly
      root
      core
      essence.
      Magical petals of bliss and succulent aroma
      lightly fall within the Garden walls.
      The flowers are sleeping, blanketed in
      millennial layers,
      reverberations of stories,
      plotlines thick with forest lore.
      Snowflakes twinkle, lightly falling
      drape long-growing trees
      peacefully awaiting their Queen.

    2. Ashen Avatar

      The descent, incubation

      … replete with promise – unrealised,

      as yet and forever …

      Great capture of a process.

    3. KittyB78 Avatar

      Thanks for sharing your pretty poem with us. 🙂

    4. Cathy Avatar

      Very good interpretation of Persephone and the Underworld. Interesting read.

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