Resentment

I have been suckling on a
chimera’s tail,
nourishing myself on
scorpion venom
as I watch others welcomed to mount the
grand pedestal
and don the Golden Fleece
of apotheosis
to outshine the rest of us.
Wanting to set fire to their
laurel crowns,
I bury dragon teeth
and pray for an army to rise
on my behalf,
whetting a hydra’s fang
for the assassination
of modern day kings and queens
whose works wear thin
my tolerance, like
Medea’s poisoned dress
eating away at Corinthian pillars.
Green with envy,
I retch at the renown they reap,
the overstocked stores of their
praise
earned by a baffling conceit
and charlatan charms
as thousands genuflect before these
false idols,
and so I hammer at their feet,
debased as I am beneath them,
chiseling with the hydra fang
in the vain hope of razing their looming pantheon
to the level ground.
See their bland temples
crowded with admirers?
See how their cultists rally behind them
when mortal measure falters
beneath godly pretense?
As Heracles laboring in the
Augean Stables,
I wish to wash away their
widespread acclaim
with the two rivers of
spite and reason,
and yet I see the refuse being gathered up
tenderly
by Lotus Eaters who have lost all sense of
taste
as they hold a grand banquet
and celebrate the chefs of such wondrous
cow pies.
I gag to think of it,
sampling their bovine expulsions.
None would be fit a beast
to have its throat slit
in honor of the Muses.
Keep down, venom!
Burn as lime
in a clay kiln!
The coals need flame
and the salt is just right—
become a Brazen Bull Boiler
that burns itself inwardly,
remolding with molten emotion
a purpose ablaze with merit.
Burn, venom!
Burn, flame!
Burn, lime!
Burn, resentment,
until aught remains but
a flaring ember
against fateful obscurity!
Does not the sun burn with envy
the stars,
unwilling to share the sky
with so many other suns?
So, too, the resentment
in this heart.
Yet, heed how these
controlled fires
of malignant envy
yield fertile lands of plenty
with teeth-sown soil…