The Green Goddess
A personification of envy in poetic form
In ruin’s iron feet she passes through realms
her plague-hipbones flanked with sea, wind and flame
a crust of lost lands presses to her womb
spilling blood-seeds light as feathery membrane
Beneath her bulbous lips nimbuses sliver
hymns spit-sigh cacophony of rain
Medusa’s snakes hiss on her sun-temples
facial light refracts in gnashes unrestrained
In the arms of a demigod her lips tremble
her blue-lotus prose in reverence tamed
sloven-breaths stow away the red of chimeras
she maps a new world with firefly exhales
When doubt blooms — her dreams witch-exhumed
prayer-palms turn talon, chalices turn poison-blade
with Kali’s tongue darted to apocalypse
she sets love ablaze in the pyre of heresy.
From a dune’s lone tempests she rises anew
her phoenix-plume mothers scars in grey
a sacrificial offering at her own altar
in the palace of doom, she becomes courtesan of hate.
Author’s Notes:
Envy’s notoriety as a colorful cardinal sin is well-known. Historically and politically, we’ve seen how it can capsize large empires, stir revolutions, start bloodied wars. (Also, sibling rivalries, I see you :D.) But what is the nature of envy? ‘Cos it is also such a complex emotion. Its potency spills into sorrow, fear, rage, withdrawal, irrationality…I like to think it is a hallucinogenic drug, medicinal only if it’s in moderation and if used for positive emulation.
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