Pythian

The serpent was an emerald cord and its forked tongue tasted the air.

With a speed that would turn the hawk to the begging of the blind,

fangs dripping with hatred lashed out at the neck of a sleeping man.

Suddenly the breath of the assassin was twisted to a cough

as the ruse of restive dreams fulfilled its design.

Apollo cast shadows where lanterns never swayed

and closed his hands around the throat of blighted Python.

He concussed the intruder upon a hardwood wall

and flung the body to a heap in a distant corner.

He spoke:

"Oh, how clever you must be, encircling

Thus this holy place of rest and learning.

Thought you yourself as quiet as white clouds

As you sought to rob from me my power?"

His mirth was felt by shepherds on hilltops.

Python hissed and said in a woman's voice,

"Finish it! Tan my skin for toughened boots

And coat the knives of traitors with my blood!

Oh Pytho, Pytho, I murder the gods

That you may lay in my coiled embrace,

I am condemned by every judge's hand,

And now at the hour that I depart

You refuse to grace my time of dying!"

The young god stretched then folded vengeful arms.

"Peasant, usurper, welcome as a plague,

Your desires are past the impossible.

For what purpose do you seek the future,

Child of none, flesh without a father?

Know ye not that my love creates visions,

That I hold Pytho for her wondrous charms

And not to catalyze a magicked sphere?"

He clamped an angered hand o'er venomed jaws

And brushed away from weeping eyes a lie.

"No, Python, that cannot be the reason,

For I see you have not thieved my arrows

Nor picked the locks of chests that shackle death;

You truly wish to steal away my love,

To enfold her in your cavernous home,

And yet you did not realize that she

Knew before the dawn of your slithering

Approach, that alarms sounded instantly.

"You fool, did she promise to break my bow,

Or shear my hair and fury like a myth?

Pytho licks her fingers and adores games,

But she will never share your diseased bed."

From a quiver on the wall the archer took a shaft

and his touch was flame and the broad-head glowed

and he held it delicately as if it were a feather and a pen.

"You must not hate me," he said with regret

as he tacked the dragon's head onto the eastern wall.

He walked far into the labyrinthine recesses

of his basement until arriving at a set of seven steps,

the objective of the stair obscured by a net of molted skin.

He pulled it over his shoulders, revealing a woman of surpassing beauty

standing knee-deep in a basin of clear water.

"Is there a way to explain your failure

To warn me of a certain visitor?"

Her maddened laughter echoed in the earth.

"Oh, great Hunter, Pythian Apollo,

Your glory and bravery precede you.

Is that a demon in your eyes I see?

Immortal mighty warrior, come here

And tell dear Pytho why your voice is raised.

Must we have this conversation anew?

In which manner shall we gather your tears,

Or has this night given you fresh courage?

I need not turn to see your shining face

To know your far-shooting bow to be strung

And ready for the battle at world's end!

"Do you really wish to threaten a ghost?

Did you not see fit to gather wisdom

While you labored in bright Thessalian fields?

Everything that happens will already

Occur, no force in Olympian heights

Can turn the path of pain-filled Acheron."

She walked forward and was immersed entire.