“The Triumph of Marsyas” by Rachel Wetzsteon
by Ernie on 13/02/09 at 11:14 am
I stood, all puss and muscle, at the stake.
And thinking that was that, you went and picked
your pipes up, snickered, and proclaimed a week
of merriment. Meanwhile a small dog licked
my blood up, causing retching int he crowd.
It was about as much as I could stand
and if, before they flayed me, they had flayed
another man alive, and I had penned
an anthem in his honor, his poor grave
would quake as he rolled over: I’d use trills
to make it snappy, foreign quotes to give
it class, and gongs to complement the bells,
then blithely, crudely pass around a cup.
I did not know what sorrow really meant.
I needed something bad to shake me up.
Torturer, muse, you gave me that event.
Each strip of skin you tore, as if with tongs
(talentless, perhaps, but I was clean!)
renewed my mission, fortified my songs;
I felt the weight, the mystery of pain
and went to my death mortified and stirred.
The mena nd women in the martyrs’ wood
could sense it instantly: I had endured.
So I became their hero and their guide,
and every night I lead them in a dirge
that narrates how we got here; first a shy,
lone voice, then many voices, soar and merge.
Sometimes a fit of sobbing shakes the sky.
Apollo, it was obvious I’d lost
the contest I suggested long ago,
with such grotesque results; but with the trust
and help of thousands, I no longer know;
if you ignore the fact that I am dead
and cannot sing for love, I think I won.
I plumb the darkness while you serenade
your patron, the well-tempered, shallow sun.
