Halls of the Dark Muse

I wanted to to write a poem about the Medussa myth which looked at things from her side of the story. The concept was to flash back and forth between Medussa as the woman and Medussa was the monster. I wam not entirely sure if I am happy with how it came out, but I wanted to try something different.

In Medusa's Eyes

Once a girl, blooming
in her innocent youth, the stars appeared to dance behind her eyes and her smile shined with the light of the moon, radiating dark mysteriousness, she had not been touched by the cruelty of the world, then she did not yet know how completely she would be crushed.

Anger seethed
darkness falls,
hatred beats in a still cold heart
where love has died before
it could be born
the screams inside
which never die.

Upon her knees she prayed in reverence
to Athena the goddess she trusted, devoting her life, her youth, her beauty to serve, her quivering lips, blushing pink like flowers of spring utter the words to the goddess of the wise, a goddess of justice they said, and how she faithfully believed with her gaze fixed upon the statue,if only she knew that beneath there was a heart as cold as the stone.

Forsaken
the gods forgot
devoured in rage
every day a dream
of vengeance to cover
the morning of isolated
sadness.

It was before the very gaze of the goddess
that her world would be brought down into ruins, where her virgin beauty caught the preying eyes or Poseidon of the raging seas, like the crashing of waves upon the shore, he fell in full force upon the once sweet maid, and her scream rose up into the heaven where they would not be heard, while Athenasneered in disdain leaving there the broken girl like wreckage washed ashore to tremble upon the marble floor with only her bitter tears to comfort her.

Wrath coils around
like a serpents tail
squeezing out the last
thoughts of harmony
she once had, leaving
only embittered
feelings.

Her beauty was contorted
to reflect in body the torment within her soul
for instead of mercy, the goddess graced her only with a curse while Poseidon regained his throne in pride, Athena by his side, they passed their judgement, against the innocent abused for their amusement and cast aside. Twisted into a monster, robbed of all her youth and budding promise that the future may have held, she was condemned to live imprisoned in desolation where never again my the chance of love or lust touch upon her soul.

Breathing fear
into others,
enwrapped in cruelty
her only companion
venom spewed
through just one look
into those now
dead eyes
a glimpse into the
abyss.

Even here, cast away denied all human sympathy, it was not enough
and she was given not so much as a chance to find some peace in her solitude, but where once there may have come suitors to seek her hand upon bended knees, in a twisted irony, she collected trophies of seekers of her head, and reap of the power which was her only consolation, and the inescapable sorrow that the visage which once infused the desire of even the gods, now repulsed so deeply the eyes of man, that they froze in their place upon first sight.

Death
would find her
stolen away selfishly
just as her purity,
still in the wind
her howls rip free
tears she could
never cry.