Streams Of Whisky

A modern twist of mine on the old water nymph love story. It's a little longish... (2000+ words) Enjoy!


In olden days the spriteful babe
Frolicked in forest, field and fen,
But times have changed and fields have changed,
Til even mighty Zeus has fled.
Yet his licentious progeny
Born and birthed of his same seed
Survives beside the quiet stream.
But times have changed and streams have changed
And while still flowing to the sea,
The Nymphs who once had called them home
No longer frolic to the sea.

the pen returns...

So, it seems I have been away from this far too long.  I think I got lost somewhere along the way, and felt like I was running out of things to share.  This isn't entirely true, of course.  I have many more things I want to present, but I've never been entirely sure how I wanted to go about it.  I've also been a bit scared of the length of some of my pieces, as they are exactly as long as they need to be, but perhaps too long for the medium presented.  Other works, such as my plays, I'm not sure how I want to go about presenting them; in what form and format; by what ways and means, and I've been skittish of letting them have such free reign of the internets as to let them go.  But they also do no good just sitting on computers and flash drives that have the unfortunate tendencies of failing.  So perhaps I should release them into the wilds.  We'll see.

Now, though, to reintroduce myself to the blog-o-sphere, I will return to one of my other projects: Women in Myth.  To follow is a long piece called, "The Nixie of the Mill-pond" which is an adaptation of an old folk tale, and embellished with semi-historical nonsense.  It is possible that this is not its final form, but in the meantime... enjoy.  Did I mention it's long...

The Nixie of the Mill-pond

Twas during the in-between times
Ere Christ had risen to glory
Before the fall of druid lore.
Twas a time when Rome still flourished
When mighty Jupiter still reigned
From that high Capitoline hill.
In a quiet Gallic village,
Much ignored by Roman power
A miller still minded the stone;
Minded as his father before. 

To Snatch Beauty

Well, we go from the shortness of a Haiku to the long free verse of "To Snatch Beauty." This is an interesting piece to me in couple of ways. It is an odd blend of Greek mythology and modern times. I like to call it a modern myth, but it's not a guess. No one believes what i write, so it's really just a modern tale involving old gods. And yet, in some ways, it is a myth. But you really have to read it to understand why. Suffice to say, it has to deal with beauty, and concepts of beauty.

The basic premise to "To Snatch Beauty" came about while I was laying in bed with my girlfriend at the time. We were talking and joking about my Women in Myth series, and I was complaining(only a little) about how a lot of them were retellings of myth. Though they all had a bit of originality to their premises, they were derivatives of the source text. I don't remember how it came up, or whose idea it was originally, but I do remember we were both in stitches over it. I had to write it. And though it took me awhile to do it, I finally did get it done. I can't tell you the premise now, because I feel it would ruin it. Read it and laugh. Read in and cry. Read it and groan. I hope you enjoy it. I know I did. In point of fact, I still do.


To Snatch Beauty

I'm certain you have passed her on the street,
But, then again, I doubt you would have known;
You would not have remarked upon her face
And your disregard would have been your loss.
Oh, you are interested now, you say;
My comments have intrigued your shallowness.

Water and Stone

We hold this week my series of "Women in Myth," this time returning to the Classics. "Water in Stone" is my take on Pygmalion, which has been done many times, I know. George Bernard Shaw did a wonderful adaptation in "Pygmalion" both for the stage and the screen, and which would later become the musical "My Fair Lady." I am not retelling it in that fashion, nor am I strictly telling the classical tale. In Greek Myth, the name Galetea is at once a water nymph, and later her name comes up as the statue that Pygmalion carves. Below is my merger of those tales, told mostly from Galetea's point of view, with the only addition by me to the myth being the bridge between the two different Galetea myths. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Edited 4/19/15 small edits to lines and the ending. Some struck stanzas, and some added.

Water and Stone

Many nymphs o’er Gaea’s fair bosom roam,

Spry-full babes of high Olympian youth;

Those beautiful daughters of divine birth

Who do fairer mortals bait for love and mirth.

Of Ocean’s fair kin this story begins;

Of Nereids and Aphrodite’s foam.

One daughter of Nereus birthed this tale,

A fair nymph who was Galatea known,

The playful sea-maiden of shapely limb

Whose baited breath spoke Nereus’ hymn:

The fair, blue-eyed lover of mirth and joy

Who for laughter, did Cyclops' love hail.

Hight Polythemus, Ouranos’ seed,

Forger of great Zeus’ fiery bolts;

Fierce Cyclopean mountain and as strong

Who sang in harmony what lovers do long.

The homely beast stared over the sea;

One-eyed monster whose heart for love would bleed.

What face should urge his Cyclopean heart

But that selfsame sensual sea-maiden

Against which all bold defenses were disarmed.

He was, as even Zeus, by her becharmed

And though ferocity battled love within,

His bold passion for her did ne'er depart.

How could he not but love her soothing voice

Though she should taunt him with her Pan-like games.

When even apples from her hand down rained;

A flirter’s game where love, above all, is feigned,

He could not but chase her unto the sea,

For passion’s pull did lend no other choice.

Yet nymph would never Polythemus woe,

For she was by other moonlit tides pulled.

She pined instead for high king’s son, Acis

Who did revel that love should grant him this.

Thus Galatea did such Cyclops spurn

When she turned at last to the love she'd know.

But Polythemus own' love bore true.

And he turned with his unbridled rage

'Pon such form as the Nereid’s love did take.

Acis beneath jealous fury did break,

To the bristling pulse of hot passion’s blood:

And the jealous hand that sought only rue.

But Nereus to Galatea saw

And turned her mortal love to river-god,

That the nymph with her lover might remain.

No more did the princely Acis lay slain

And could now wholly with each other be,

As springs will flow and merge with winter's thaw.

Yet slighted lover could no peace enjoy,

Knowing as he did where his love did lay

Far 'way where there was naught that he could do.

So Cyclops did pray his father to pursue;

To punish whom, his baited heart, had torn;

The new-made god and his lover, most coy.

High Poseidon did grant his son this boon

And turned his seaweed eye ‘pon the fairer nymph

To trap free-flowing sea nymph in stone.

From Acis’ love was she cast alone,

Locked in ridged marble, Galatea,

Where could not feel the tidal pulls of the moon.

For how many years was she trapped from sight,

Locked, immobile, in that formless stone

An atrophied body, still free of mind;

Sea-maiden to isolation resigned.

How marks the time with neither light nor sound

Hidden away in a permanant night.

What thought she then, the coming of the Greeks,

Chisels warming to the hard hammer’s blow

Striking now great blocks from old mountain’s side.

Was it freedom that those blows would confide?

They pulled her formless form from mountain steep

She was still yet stone from those stony peaks

Taken to mighty Cyprus, those marble blocks,

Before such hands as eager chisels bore

To carve, for priests, the likeness of their God

In the hope that their fair blessings might laud.

Came they, these marble blocks, unto market

Where sculptor’s hands were tempted from their walks.

And one such sculptor unto market came,

A youthful man whose skilled hands well crafted;

Who from stone wrought forms most lifelike

And who, of women, held a great dislike.

Bore he art over marriage and maiden,

This man of Cyprus with Pygmalion’s name.

Went he unto where the high marble stood,

A man who sought naught of the blocks but see

Until his eyes found whence the nymph was bound.

Knew he in that moment what he had found;

That from this block would carve his greatest work;

And the future would know him, as it should.

Took he with eager step the marble home

Where trepidation stayed his knowing hand.

In quiet contemplation he caressed

The work worn handles that the muse once blessed.

His mind’s eye clearly saw what matter known,

That hands must carve where heart would never roam.

Then Galatea felt his touch upon...

How grand a change from workman’s courser tools,

To such loving skill of a craftsman’s touch.

How passion for the art welled so much

Within the form of hatred’s tempered man;

First companion since Godly wrath had drawn.

So long was nymph so formlessly there kept;

How great the rapture to once again bear

Arms and legs, even as so roughly hewn;

With wasted marble all around her strewn.

What warmth spread within her mind’s breast,

Such gratitude she would fresh tears have wept.

How spent he the hours labouring o’er her,

So focused was he ‘pon unbidden muse

That food lay neglected, though near at hand.

So driven was he by chisel and sand

That worked fervently ‘neath sun and moon,

The artist’s passion had ne'er been so pure.

Single mindedly Pygmalion worked,

And as her naked form from block exposed;

As he shaped the nymphs fingers, breasts and thighs;

Grew he to no longer women despise.

He found, as steadily fair nymph emerged,

His loathing blurred with the love he once shirked.

And there Galatea still wrapped in stone

Felt sculptor’s loathing of the naked form

Join the growing rubble beneath her feet.

Whenever fingers ‘pon her flesh did meet,

Flowed tingles as only a lover knows;

A glowing heart that no real love had known.

What tender touch Pygmalion there laid,

As he with beach’s sand softened her gaze

And made smooth where naked Nereid stand.

What tempered mind guided perfection’s hand

To lend luster to whom in stone entombed;

A maiden’s form; a godly debt re-paid.

Henceforth fair she stood in alabaster white,

A sea maiden yet trapped in marble’s stone;

The naked form as nymph had bourn in life.

Had she learned true love from sea god’s strife?

The pallid stone could lend no mortal blush

But deep within, the marble was glowing bright.

And the man who hated women no more,

Stepped back when rags had lend her all their blush,

To gaze on such beauty as was ne'er seen.

It went far deeper than the polished sheen,

And Pygmalion’s heart burst forth from stone,

For a love that ne'er existed before.

Yet how sad was his most longing caress;

Warm fingers on Galatea’s cold stone;

To know, somehow, his heart was forthwith bound.

Love from hate, for a statue had found,

Lifeless and unyielding marble made home...

Did the gods curse him? Did the goddess bless?

He bought the fairest gifts that he could find:

The finest of robes in the purest of white,

And clothed his naked alabaster bride.

So far within, the nymph could not confide,

Such joy as wrought these gifts, when clothed her form,

And wished she could comfort his tortured mind.

He brought forth robes of deep emotions hue,

Of the sadness born of her lifeless kiss;

And the unrequited love found in stone.

And how she burned over such passion shown,

And wished with all of her marble-cast soul,

To give, as she could not, and end the rue.

His passion, even with his sadness grew,

With the whispers of lovers and of loss:

The blooms of narcissus, dear Echo’s bane;

Bold hyacinth, made of blood from gods, vain;

Fair windflower, Goddess’ love – death grown:

All love’s fair flowers; all grown of loss too.

Then he lay the statue with him in bed

Staring, pining, into her sightless gaze

What agony such unfulfilled embrace.

Yet she looked on, through lifeless eyes, his face.

And wished, like him, that there was life in limb;

That the veins there within marble, ran red.

And Galatea yearned to let him know

That there was a nymph inside this stone

That burned for him, e'en as he burned for she.

Was there no god who could hear their plea,

Or was this Posiedon's continued curse

To watch a lover as love lost its glow.

How long can e'en the ardent love survive

When what is offered effects no return

And no grace be found from a statue's lips.

What else but melancholy therein slips

For a broken heart that can bear no longer

The unrequited that made him alive?

Pygmalion reached forth one final hand

To touch with more sadness than could be bourne

And caress his lover’s still, marble face.

He could no longer her stone statue chase,

For there was no chase, just a foolish run

At a boulder that was ne'er more than land

Then Pygmalion left, wretched; alone;

Off to Aphrodite’s fairest home:

Unto fair Cyprus from whence she first came.

There, during the festival of her name

Gathered the hopeful lovers to offer

And please; that her blessing might be shown.

Not so joyous Pygmalion's gait

As laid before Aphrodite’s alter

His wish for a wife as e'en his hands made.

Yet she saw after his respects were paid

That no stranger, nor devoted love came;

And flared the altar’s flame, to seal his fate.

None could say how Aphrodite might bless,

But Pygmalion knew that love would come

And ease the sadness enshrouding his heart.

All he knew was that he had done his part,

And that the Goddess accepted his plea

To end his new-born lover's heart's duress

Yet his love for the statue had not fled,

Though he thought he had said his last goodbye,

He could not but gaze at her and love still.

His hand reached forward out of concious will

To trace the line of Galatea’s cheek,

To find flesh follow where his fingers led.

He knew his hope now played a fearful ruse

And turned aside lest reason lost all hold

To the heat that seemed to rise at his touch.

Twas illusion and he knew it as such,

And yet his mind was not so easy turned;

His heart still longed to kiss his marble muse

Meanwhile, how Galatea raged inside!

How rapid now beat Galatea's soul!

Had felt his touch as skin upon her skin!

What hope filled pulse did crash as wave-born din

As fought against immovable stone

And her love that stood on the other side.

How tempted eager heart Pygmalion’s mind:

How oft had he offered such sweet caresses

To find only the chill of pallid stone.

Twas different, and his fingers should have known

For they had chiseled, sanded and polished,

But ne'er had it wrought a warmth of that kind

Pygmalion unto himself now lost,

And brought his hand once more unto her face

To test his open heart and prove his mind.

But it was love that his hand there did find,

As the marble flushed 'neath his careful touch

And caution to the western wind was tossed.

As tentative as any lover could,

Pygmalion drew himself up and kissed

Such lips as he knew better than his own.

These lips were not his well remembered stone;

As they returned to him all her passion,

But not all the love that they ever would.

And life’s blood’s heat through Galatea spread,

The granted gift of maiden’s form returned,

That coursed from lips unto her every limb.

The stone melted to her, and her to him,

Wrapping at long last, and then longer still,

For the myth lives: their love cannot be dead.

Valkyr's Price

And now for something completely different!

This week I'm gonna step away from the shorter stuff, and in someways, step away from love. We are going to journey back into my "Women in Myth" series with Valkyr's Price, one of my favorite and most personally influential pieces. "Valkyr's Price" was written shortly after I had moved to Telluride, during my first winter there, and while I don't necessarily draw much from our physical world when I write, I do remember taking a hike to the frozen Bridal Veil Falls. In the middle of winter, staring at the blue veined ice, I tried to absorb the spirit of the Norse; of the fridged north they hailed from. Winter doesn't play much of a role in "Valkyr's Price" but I like to believe that some of that energy found it's way in, anyway.

I was already beginning to dig deeper in to myth, and in particular at the time of this piece, into Norse mythology. I had begun with summaries of the mythology. These annoyed me. I never felt as if they were giving me enough. So I went out and found good translations of the Eddas, searching eagerly for the things I thought were missing from the retellings. Turns out, the Eddas didn't have the information either. But one thing the translations had over the retellings lies in the skaldic verse itself. The structure of the Norse tales, and of kennings intrigued me. There was a richness to them that the prose retellings left out. Artistic licence is one thing, but I wasn't looking for modern art; I wanted ancient myth. I wanted the original meat and bones, or at least as close as I could, before I would develope my own ideas. I found the myths, found the spirit, and now I wanted to play.

Within the Eddas, there are three tales of Helgi and Sigrun; all the same, and all different. I loved the stories, and so when I retold it in "Valkyr's Price" I tried to blend all three together, and at the same time, I wanted to detail a little more about the Valkyrie. "Valkyr's Price" is, in the end for me, a tale about the price of love, and how high a cost love can be for a Valkyrie. I like to believe I kept true to the original tales, to my sources and to the spirit of the Norse; that my modern interest in the cost to Sigrun only adds to the mythological whole. I hope you enjoy this excursion into olden lands, in a style, not strictly skaldic, but close in energy.


Valkyr's Price

From Valhalla begets our tale,
The hall of Odin, Allfather
Whence Sigrún the Valkyr dost hail,
The hall of Odin, Allfather.

Echo's Love be not Forgotten

It is so hard to pinpoint the muse, and just how much she can influence a life. A few years ago I had a friend named Chelsea who was a young co-worker and artist. She, at that point, had already accomplished more with her art than I have yet with my writing, but I was attracted to the style of her work. Around that same time, my mythological studies were surrounded by the ever present Greeks, and as much as I deplore their omnipresence, they are also the seed to many writings and deeds and history that cannot be ignored. I came across, not for the first time, nor for the last, the tale of Echo and Narcissus. As I was reading, I had the vision of an idea; a portrait of Echo in Chelsea's style. I was really excited by the idea. I was even more excited to commission the piece. I broached the topic, and she was intrigued, but she did not know the myth. I explained it, wrote down the name and such so she could research it, and we went our separate ways. I decided to write a poem containing the myth, to give to her to assist her in the commission. I didn't have any specific ideas for the piece; I just knew I wanted her to paint it, but I wanted to make sure she knew the myth. Below is "Echo's Love be not Forgotten," which was written for that purpose. I love the painting and have it to this day.

But that was not the only thing grown out of that commission and composition. I was so taken with the idea, and I was so enchanted, indeed I still am, with mythology, that it birthed in me a new series of poems. Tentatively called "Women in Myth," the series, which is still underway, broached Greek, Roman, Celtic and Norse mythology, along with folktales from around the world. The tales range from a single page in the shortest, to an in-progress piece that is over 40 pages long. All because I commissioned a single piece from a fellow artist. Mighty is the muse, and I love her, even if I can only hear her echoes.


Echo's Love be not Forgotten

Mine love, dost thou remember me?
Remember me?

Dost thou remember olden woods
Where summer used to find us twined,
Where springs sang warmly unto we?
Unto we...

Remember I how came to thee,
How rivers splashed so merrily
And what those glens inspired in me.
In me...