‘Helen’ by Euripides – by Andrew Sutherland
ISLAND | ONLINE ONLY
Desire poems are an empty
a discarded mirror
Love poems are a gleaming
com and the rom
Just so you are aware: I have a double
out there. A god-made simulacra; cloud.
Whenever you were sure you saw me
watching down the war: that was the
illusion. It wasn’t me. I’m overseas.
Trapped in an upper hemisphere.
An unrelated country, doing
absolutely nothing. Airport
strike. A Helen of [blank].
I don’t understand this!!
I look at the photos of moments
I forgot how I looked but remembered
to take. The inverse thrill of
the present censuring the past.
I was never there.
Wide open mouth creeps in on itself.
The tongue shapes the way a person
carries on. Tonsils disappear into their own
forever. If only you knew I’ve been trapped
in this desert! If only you knew how this
desert’s a mind! Yes, I had a couple of tries
at lover. After acting school. Young, classical,
straight, but could no one believe my vows or
my grief? My little boy sweet; my side-
side-long cloud? I’m sorry: just know
I’ve been framed. Perpetual crime
I’ve been framed; here and this way. To be
the scene’s neighbour is a criminal thrill.
This is a misdirect!! A pyramid!! Now there is
only one boat!! And I don’t understand all this
talk of a horse. It’s exhausting
an invoicing thrill. I couldn’t convince you
at all. I couldn’t arrange my cloud
shame. I stayed in desire
when death was where I had just finished
looking. I wanted to change the world
with my being seen. The way
messengers rescue the drama.
And why your un-believing? I didn’t
cause this to happen. Oh heaven!
Oh heaven!! I wasn’t even there.
An easy mistake to make; in the horse,
in the ships, in the role, in the genocide.
But that was off-stage. But that was
a cloud. O god! he says. All of this
suffering for the sake of a cloud! Is this
pain? A cloud passing by
with the day.
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Image: Painting by Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys (cropped)
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