Leda in Chains
by Frank Watson

 


The roots have grown in earth’s entwining pulse,
and all that’s left is sown in plund’ring pulse.

Words of squalor, birds aflutter,
consciousness slurred in time’s encircling pulse.

Absurd, this game of back-and-forth,
the silent shame of desolating pulse.

Girded by fear, she fled but could not
escape the spear of thrusting pulse.

Spurred to seize his feeble prey,
he drives to please his surging pulse.

Unstirred by sounds of Leda’s cries,
he drowns in rounds of violating pulse.

Unheard between the herbs and sky,
No one disturbs her stifling pulse.



Note: The form was inspired by today’s dVerse FormForAll, hosted by Semaphore(Sam Peralta). The theme of the poem was inspired by the myth of Leda and the Swan and, more loosely, by Bob Dylan’s “Desolation Row.” The painting is a 16th century copy of a lost Michelangelo painting on the myth, digitally enhanced (source: Wikimedia; the painting is now at the National Gallery in London).

In the story of Leda and the Swan, Leda is raped by Zeus in the guise of a swan. She bears Helen, who is later kidnapped by Paris and taken to Troy, thus sparking the Trojan War.

The strict form of the ghazal sonnet has the following requirements:
  1. Seven couplets
  2. Each couplet should be independent while still being related to the larger poem.
  3. The first couplet ends with the same refrain on each line.
  4. The remaining couplets end their second line with the same refrain as in the first couplet.
  5. The word before the refrain must rhyme with all the other words before the other refrains. I.e., “stifling pulse,” “violating pulse,” etc.
  6. The last couplet must in some way refer to the poet. 
  7. Each line must follow the same metrical pattern.
 After editing, I managed to follow all of these for the most part except #6-7. I tried “blue,” but it seemed too dark given the already dark nature of the theme. For the meter, I mostly use iambic meter, but the lines do not have an even number of feet. Although not part of the form, I also made the first word of the final six couplets rhyme and added an internal rhyme between the two lines of each couplet.
All writings and translations are Copyright © by Frank Watson, also writing as "Blue Flute" (2011-2014).
Year: 
2013