Dusame in the Mirror
by Ssal Nogard (for an analysis, click here)
In a land deep of reflection
stands a mirror of perfection.
In it sees the soul’s subjection
clearly against all objection
hardened into stone.
There sits a maiden, sometimes standing
all within her view commanding
vast and wide an understanding
of sights seen in the glass.
Through the mirror fair she looks,
stealing thoughts, akin a crook;
with a glance she never brooks
the edges of the glass.
This creature lady has a ken
that sees the ills within and when
she sees the ills it comes forth ten
more thousand fold as hard.
The mirror looks for her instead
of her own eyes, to which it fed
forbidden sights behind her--led
her to such things as she would wed
fastly to her eyes.
But if a look into this glass
from any eyes besides the lass,
of verdant hair and eyes that pass
the gleaming of the moon,
Would see the same as in a plain
made looking glass. And so contain
nothing of the brass insane-
ness thrashing to look out.
Through days that spun of languid splendor
Ceaseless grew her glassly wonder.
Could not god and could not thunder
take her glass and her asunder.
~~~~~*******~~~~~*****~~~~~~~~~~~~~****~~~~~
Her sisters two at least as fair
Gorgons both: the immortal hair
that flamed by day and slunk through lair,
by night, of green and serpent rare
The sisters of Dusame.
They had the hair, they had the flame
but never did they look the same.
They’d not her eyes and could not blame
the shadows in the glass.
Why so for one who sits and sees
by glass while two can look with ease
at sights delightful as they please…
For she was never on her knees,
and so she never could appease
her gods with prayer or small decrees
of sycophantish, squealing pleas.
For triflings none, she wanted ease
on par with that of this and these
immortals flying in the breeze.
But to the gods she paid no fees
and so she sits with their disease
for never needing them.
Thus, by day was changed a girling,
solid skin and all-a-curling,
hair that shivered, and a-pearling
eyes that shone a shade of sterling,
Hardness more and hardness yearning
bleakly for a break.
As such the mortal in her showed
no greater in her glass abode,
where all she sat and oft was told
of things not hers nor to behold.
Yet in the corner of her eye
her sisters dance until they cry
of things so lovely yonder high!
and things so holy yonder nigh--
that from her lips she slips a sigh
of things she cannot see.
~~~**~~~***~~~~~~~~~~~~**~~~~~~~~~~~
They come to see the sisters three,
heroic with a certainty,
that in their curse they bear gladly
are free to wave most luridly
at suitors all who fast decree
to slay the sisters famously.
It never ends this way, only
more turned to granite cruelly
not from fate but intensity
of finding more and differently.
Two steps forward, whistling lowly
He has come to see the holy
of the Gorgons, changing solely
at the break of eve.
He sits to see the fair Dusame,
whose beauty deep is known by name.
Whoever so could win a claim
of sight and hair and so her tame,
yet live through such a ghoulish game
of sight, hair, and forbidden frame.
He catches sight far in the glass
seductive lines and heinous mass
of things unseen, he lets it pass--
those moments in her eyes.
Her sisters smiling, sidling close
to see their pilgrim and to boast…
Instantly she turned a ghost
of shadows and of sighs.
Dusame had seen him by the way
and she had wanted him to lay
his hand upon her---but she stayed
and in her struggle did she sway
so that she nearly looked.
Dared not to look, or even turn
her body sick. A shudder yearned,
and in the instant that she spurned
his call, it tripled her to burn
still harder in the glass.
~~****~~~*****~~~~~~******~~~~~~*****~~~~~****~~~~~
And when the sun spit shriveled rays,
Her hair turned in a vastly maze
of dark and emerald ablaze
that met none of her awesome gaze--
chimera called Dusame.
And the mirror shines a clearer
glow, and clearer with the sheerer
lines of things outlined and nearer,
made over big and over dearer
to the watcher called Dusame.
How can she look and make him stone,
her gaze that blights through look alone
from lightened eyes and depths they shone,
blazed into hard reflection.
Looked through the glass but for a flash,
He lifted sword and made to slash
her slender throat a deep red gash
and saw her look away.
She looked a look of guileless peer,
reflection and a window clear
both of soul and desire dear.
She looked him through and back.
He lowered blade and fought to spy
the wonder in the glassy eye
but knew that look that would belie
the tendency to magnify
what was within the glass.
“Your look is one of death,” he said
and for this man would have your head.
I cannot deviate my stead
fast intent to run you red.”
“My look is death,” she said, “if only
in your shadowed, dank and lonely
crevices you speak--atone! Be
sorry--of things… ungod.”
“Then all,” he said, “no doubt succumb
Better to be struck mute and dumb
in mind and soul and so in sum
than risk a thought that strays.
“And you Dusame, how do you fit
into this frame you never quit
so calmly do you peer and sit
extracting our misdeeds”
“I sit unscathed as I can do no
wrong or right and thus I grow
no further than my frame and so
I sit and dream of things I know
not of and wish I did
--a little.”
sighed the sad Dusame.
On bended knee he took her hand
and gave her tears that rifely ran
and seared her skin like desert sand,
blinding her to see.
Her eyes grew wide, her hair died lank
she gazed at him once more and sank
her head onto the mirror’s bank
and gazed at it no more.
He lifted her and turned her face;,
unseeing kissed her eyes with haste
and set her back onto the chaste
smooth surface of the mirror.
He sheathed his blade, and set to go,
his body limp and hanging low,
in desolation for a foe
who was not--And, will never know
that he saw her more clearly thro’
the eye glass of Dusame.
And yet he steals her stony gaze
cast from the glass to surely raze
The look, once seen, it always stays
the mortal called Dusame.
~~~~*~*~~*~~*~~~~~~~~*~*~~~~~*~~
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