Friday, September 02, 2005

Poem: Medea

Here's something of my own that I wrote many years ago. I had finished reading Euripides' play, MEDEA, and it inspired me to write something about her plight.


Medea

It blinds reason,
Coloring all with a sickly green cast
that winds its way into the very blood of the beholder.

Soon every heart’s beat feeds the infection.
Festering, seething, waiting
for the perfect moment to burst
and cast airborne its deadly spores.

It can lie dormant for years or
quicken in an instant.
A parasite, it will eat away at weak hosts.
For the strong, it offers seductive symbiosis,
commanding sanity in exchange for survival.

Then it becomes a weapon
of remorseless revenge:
cold fury and foaming wrath.

Hair-pulling madness settles
into deep-pitted calculation,
no rules or duty guide the heart
ravished by this disease
born from love’s wake.

Medea knew Jealousy.
Embraced it as a suckling babe,
feeding it with gall
and the sanguine
of blood sprung deep
from passion’s heart.

2 comments:

Rinda Elliott said...

Very, very nice.

Rinda

Kelli McBride said...

Thanks! It's one of my favorites.