Soapbox

The Fall of Ilium

This poem is about a migraine. I know, it doesn't make any sense. Sorry. Nothing does when you have a migraine.
Oh, and I've been reading a book about Homer's "Iliad", so…

It’s like falling off the edge of the world,
being swallowed by stones,
peeling off most of your skin
and bumping around on your bones.
Intelligent thought flees like a shadow,
time randomly stops and starts,
no sound exists but the screaming pulsation
of your  own incoherent heart.
All proud defense is reduced to ash,
and the scarlet scent of defeat,
Only agony lingers as each panting breath
sings like a knife through your teeth.

Alas, poor Troy, your mighty gates sundered
by no army camped outside
but swiftly and silently from within
where synapse and neuron collide.
Weep not, fair Ilium, for the effort of tears,
the mere sound as they drip through your hands
will set your ragged teeth to bleeding,
and fill your heart with sand.
Too late to offer burnt sacrifice,
all vision is burned away
in flashes of scarlet and aubergine thunder
as the angry gods join the fray.

But by and by, the chaos recedes,
for gods weary of the sport of war.
When there is strength left over from mere survival
and rational thought is restored,
you pull yourself out of the creaking rubble,
limp over the broken stones,
through the debris of your sense of control
and the lingering reek of brimstone.
You peer beyond the gates, the flag
of truce at last unfurled
to gape at how easily life went on without you
while you were falling off the edge of the world.