More for Helen of Troy by Simon Mundy

More for Helen of Troy
    I
    Before and After the Abduction
    Such a clear division, surely impossible
    That life can be so definite, so ordered
    By one night, one dream remembered through the bruises,
    The hands and worse carrying me away,
    Discussing me inside and out,
    Killing the pleasure of my secrets,
    The frenzy of his misunderstanding
    Becoming the public truth.
    I have begun again, not at the beginning,
    But instead at the moment when beauty
    Became the source of conquest and Eros
    The cruel god, instrument of Aphrodite’s revenge.
    This must not decide my story, shroud my breath
    Forbidding ecstasy. I will shake the dark spots from the sun.

    II
    Perfect Nights
    As the fruitless hours wore on
    In a foreign town
    She could hear the absent men in battle,
    Disputing her favours, her qualities,
    The entrances and storerooms of pleasure
    She tried to keep hidden on parade.
    Lying awake and naked but mercifully
    Alone she imagined distant alliances
    Forged as her messages
    Fell on listening ears
    Inspired to faster rescue than could be managed
    By the rancid men
    Squabbling on the beach at dawn.
    Then there would be perfect nights
    Secure, warm, dark, rich and out of exile.

    III
    Hair Day
    The braiding could take a morning
    From dawn, when the other women
    Yawned, too stiff to flaunt their lesser virtues,
    Through the brilliance of the southern sun,
    Its brightening echoed in the lightening
    Of her strands from reddish gold to almost white.
    Only far below, the place of Paris,
    Did a dark shadow expose the soul,
    Even that mown and ordered
    To obedient falsehood.

    IV
    Deceptive Beauty
    She carries all the contradictions
    Of peonies, body and soul,
    Bloom and stem, held proud in Spring,
    First and fast to rise. Her face a glory
    Budding in a perfect moon, a mystery
    So contained, complex in hidden folds,
    So fecund in astonishing conclusion.
    In full June panoply she seems
    Gaspingly beautiful, her white cheeks
    Tinged with pink, her neck flecked
    With clever hints of colour, her scent
    Pervasive late into the cathartic evening.
    Her petal skin, though, flinches
    At the slightest touch, bruises even
    From a kiss of admiration,
    Collapses as soon as picked,
    A sigh of quick capitulation.
    Your sadness is misplaced, don’t worry,
    For though she hates to be moved
    Her roots will be among the earliest
    To sense the death of frost,
    Pierce the reluctant earth
    And send her incarnation
    Shooting from her bed again.

    V
    Parade
    She rarely shows herself in person,
    Reachable flesh, febrile scent,
    Cause enough for a riot, another assault,
    Escalating her protective walls, tearing aside
    Her screen of indifference. But her image
    Is everywhere – icon and full-length,
    Embellished and crude, accurate and all make-up.
    Sometimes, before the men go out to fight,
    To line up for destruction, they parade
    Everything they’ve got of her, portraits
    So ideal they take the breath away and leave
    Their bearers reckless for castigation.

    VI
    Menelaus’s Song
    All that has gone is time
    Elastic hours and nights at sea,
    Around the fires fuelled with sticks
    The goats left and the skeletons
    Of passing ships. I tried to see you
    As you were the night before our parting,
    Those hours of astonishment, discovery and fear
    So fleet beside these barren years.
    All I can summon is the icon,
    The flat ideal of beauty
    Seen through another’s eye
    And I dread the reuniting minutes,
    You torn from your ruptured city
    Wearing the lines and paint of exile
    The resignation of a trophy handed back.

    VII
    Paris’ Song
    You are a judge of course
    As well as supplicant and victim,
    So what will my sentence be?
    A napier to your household,
    Counting the cost, laundering,
    Rinsing the unfortunate past
    From your bright future
    And all the distressing while
    Acting as banker to your dreams.

    VIII
    The Soldier’s Song
    She is so far away
    I have never smelled her skin,
    Felt the texture of her dress,
    Once a voice sounded