Like Antigone

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Like Antigone, I have been buried here alive,
perhaps for the same kind of dismal daunting reasons
(those bounden days-of-evil blinding reasons),
except of course I found I had
no brother to bury or to kill
or to glorify or be killed by,

but wrestled with myself alone as if I were perchance
my own Polynices or Eteocles1
in some sordid fratricidal jest
or jeering ingrown deadly-soft incest.
Such dreamt excess is not quite death, I know,
except that the extremes imposed require
so much of me that nothing else gets done.

I've done my absurd best so far, that's certain,
in leering violation of my itching awkward self,
veering wildly like some wayward waylaid ship
encircling while at anchor who-the-hell-knows-what,
but surely nothing more in sum than clumsy circles,
a scratch at night performed by four bored fingers and a thumb.

I have been buried long and deep,
gone numb as if asleep inside this winding fate,
like Daddy's Girl interred in earth and pride and hate,
and have not seen the light of day this clear and fine
in waking dreams or years of nights—see how it plays and shines!
How dare I feel it might unbind these rigid lines of destiny, and yet
How dare I not? I can but look and see it Gone, and yet I dream
I could find my way above and seize wild-hearted chance again!

rcs.

10th draft: 11/18/07
©2000 Ronald C. Southern

[Notes: Polynices and Eteocles, sons of Oedipus, killed each other in battle. Eteocles had broken their agreement about governing Thebes alternately. Their sister Antigone defied her uncle Creon and performed the funeral rites for Polynices. Creon then buried her alive in the family tomb, where she hung herself.]

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