Athena Writes to Prometheus A Poem by C. E. Wendland
2339 W. Grenshaw Street, Apt. 2 Chicago, IL 60612 clara.wendland@gmail.com (404) 580-3355 August 16, 2016
Athena Writes to Prometheus Do you remember my birthday, Prometheus? Zeus my father felt me swelling, unborn within his head he felt the ridges of my nascent armor scraping, scarring the innards of his skull, broiling and bubbling the hard knots of my muscles unfurling and it was agonizing for us both. His head, hence unperturbed, exploding I clawing desperately to escape— If you had not rallied, if you had not split Zeus’s head agape with your saber I fear I may have suffered the same fate as my mother, who was absorbed by Zeus, a hapless mortal taken by a god. And when I sprang from his gore I screamed in unrepentant relief, I screamed in rage at my confinement in his head I screamed in ecstasy at seeing the light in my gauzy, untrained eyes and with those eyes the first thing I ever saw— Was you. Do you remember the battles, Prometheus? Zeus my father wished for a warlike child and he got one, fully formed and limber armor-clad and girded who—he loved this— sprang from his twain-struck head with a war whoop. My glorious appearance gave him mirth. And I never questioned, even when my father fought his father, uncles, aunts, all the blood that made him he warred upon till he alone proclaimed himself the king. I was kin to Zeus alone, his daughter. I thought these Titans were not my own blood. But I never told you, Prometheus, that on that most terrible of dark days those days when we alone strung our Fate-threads when we nearly shattered the weak world with our fury at our forebears I looked to the side and saw you with your father, Iapetus, and you were throttling him, fighting on our side, fighting your kin. The only thing in this now-wise world 1
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Athena Writes to Prometheus that ever made me tremble, made me pause— Was you. Do you remember the fire, Prometheus? Zeus my father was furious, whipped wild like a blizzard and he commanded that you should burn alive for defying him and bringing the precious fire to mortals. But you could not die, you defied his wrath for the one thing a god may never do is to take the life of another god. So he did the next best thing and that was to order his beloved war-like child to chain you to a rock and leave you there to eternal torture, naked and alone. I remember the fire that stung my eyes and the urging hatred that bloomed in me for my armor-clad and girded body. I wear the unwanted form he gave me before I had the self to ask for one and why was I—am I—compelled to be the war-like child, the faithful follower, the daughter who could not hate her father. I felt it all as I ordered Kratos to haul you, bound and chained and shamed away for I could not do it myself. And now here you are, and here am I, and now I know you hate me but I wanted to tell you Prometheus, the only man I have ever feared for— Is you.
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The Dead Girl A Poem by C. E. Wendland
2339 W. Grenshaw Street, Apt. 2 Chicago, IL 60612 clara.wendland@gmail.com (404) 580-3355 August 16, 2016
The Dead Girl I dream of death. The kinda dream you hop into like birds Duckin’ a sprinkler’s spray on the green lawn. Not like daydreams, those soft and gentle things Like a boyfriend’s first small kiss on the lips. I dream of those too. But mostly, I dream Of death. I dream that I’ve been found beaten blue and Naked by the road goin’ to nowhere. Life has been sucked out of me and dragged off Screaming and crying, and I’m just left there, Like the busted tires blown off semis. And the cops come, and the Highway Patrol, Wearin’ gray uniforms and them odd hats. ‘Cept the detective, he’s in a trench coat And looks an awful lot like George Clooney. The cops see me lyin’ there like road-kill— “It was a rapist who abducted her, killed her elsewhere, dumped the body here, sir—” Like a sack of rotten potatoes he Didn’t want. And the lab technicians in their white coats Are bent all over me, analyzing. Thoroughly professional, every one, But deep down they’re feelin’ sorry for me. Not the detective, though. Oh no, he says He’s seen all this a hundred thousand times. “Another dead girl,” he says. So then they cart me off in a black bag. They take me to the coroner, and he Lays me on one of them special tables, Like a precious relic they dug up in Palestine, and with the utmost care, and With reverence, with delicacy, They cut me up. It will take them about a week or two To finally find out who I was, but Mr. Detective won’t give up on me. When the lab technicians tell him about How I fought back against my captor, how The duct tape rubbed off the flesh on my wrists, 1
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The Dead Girl He’ll be touched somewhere deep down. They’ll find my family. Dad with his beer and his ESPN. Mom with her church baking and Tylenol. And Mickey with his videogame shit. And the stark, grim truth will shock them out of Whatever funk it was that gulped them down Slowly like the sinkhole in the basement. And they won’t stop crying. Not my family, Not my minister, Pastor McNeil, Who could stare the devil down with his frown, Or Mrs. Freeman, who plays piano Next door and won’t ever come out cause she Hates humanity. And especially Not Tyson Lunt, who I will not think of. He was more than happy to rub his hands All over my belly, breasts, and thighs Like I was some headless plucked chicken he Was buttering up for roasting, and then Didn’t eat. They all will wish they’d known me, Even the ones who thought they did, they’ll miss That pretty girl who looked like Kate Winslett. They’ll forget how I used to hit Mickey when he cried cause our Dad didn’t come home, And I didn’t want to start crying too. Or how I flunked the damn ACT cause Pete Roscoe took me out the night before To get drunk in Capelli’s parking lot, Newly eighteen, adult, apathetic. Or when that one old man came into Shaw’s… I was extra slow bringin’ him coffee Because I could see he was all tattered, Like a skeleton leaf stuck in the snow. He kept asking where was his coffee, please, Until he finally got up and blew Out the door, leaf-like and hungry-looking. I have dreamed of this death all of my life. A sensible, understandable death where you know why someone vanishes and why you should take the time to give a shit. 2
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The Dead Girl Death by serial killer is faster Than the slow death I’ve already been dyin’. Least when it’ll be all over, when my Pain and dreamin’s done, and all that’s left is My body, sack of rotten potatoes, Then someone, if only some detective Who wants to do his job and give me peace Will love me.
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The Little Adventuress A Poem by C. E. Wendland
2339 W. Grenshaw Street, Apt. 2 Chicago, IL 60612 clara.wendland@gmail.com (404) 580-3355 July 31, 2016
The Little Adventuress I was on the tube the other day; a father came in with his girls. Two little girls, with long red hair that tumbled in wild curls. They had bright, adventurous eyes, these girls, they looked up in delight at the pole you must hold on to when there are no seats in sight. "Dad, can you lift me up?" asked the elder of the two. "Alright," said Dad, and up she went for the grandest carriage view. She smiled the brightest sunbeam as she climbed to the very top. And when Dad had to put her down, the little adventuress didn't stop. When one day she's climbing mountains, I know her dad will miss the day that he could lift her up and hold her way above the carriage sway. For now she swings around her pole, bumping into her copy-cat sister. And her smiling father does not think of just how much he loves her.
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