In Communion with Calliope: #1 Apotheosis

A square image with a red and purple gradient background. A floral circle in black frames the words 'In Communion with Calliope'

In Communion with Calliope is a weekly poetry column by Ivana Devcic.

Eyes as dark as a body of water

that sits still, cradling a cemetery 

of dead branches in its depths.

Further inside,

a chthonic pyre gutters smoke,

kindled with unwillingly-given libations.

A body that recalls the curve of stone,

tamed beneath centuries of reverent touches, 

heartlessly shatters the mortals who surrender. 

Gluttonous, eldritch being,

so thoroughly awash with sacrifice,

that the creaking bones of the world

still salivate in relished remembrance. 

And the lips –

when he drinks from them, 

those poisonous, 

raw, swollen buds,

to oblivion he fervently submits.

He is a being of but a day,

and yet, 

when she abandons him 

to the monotony of mortality,

and he gazes, in the night, 

at a star, far, far away, 

he will shudder, weep, and yearn

for the memory of her eternity 

that fleetingly engulfed him,

and gave nothing in return.


Posted

in