The heads of Cerberus

One head laughs, one growls, one bites –
past, present, future –
all those mystic, magic threesomes,

passing an eye amongst themselves

unspooling fate

one head grants wishes, one entangles,
one undoes – the third’s the charm

and we are slamming through the myths now
and the old magic

and one head snarls, one snaps,
one whimpers

and on the other side of this
is somewhere grey and dull
and all the dead whispering
their secrets to each other,
none of them listening,
only muttering, a tide of sound,
like waves rolling on a shingle beach
where there are no birds
nothing but pebbles
water rounded
stretching out

and on the other side of this
is the darkness of forgetting
words slipping from your grasp
the strange mystery of zips
the art of buttoning and unbuttoning
the murmur of a knife blade

and one head sighs, one shakes, one weeps

 

I’m vaguely keeping up with these prompts. Pick them up at the GoDogGo Cafe, and say thank you to Christine for putting them up.

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