the underworld

sing now muses

sing of forever but sing now

sing of Persephone and her time in the gloom

Look Zeus

is taking the sky

Poseidon the sea

but everything else comes down underground

Hades to thee

Pluto with his gold in the coldest room

there is no breath no life

the king of shades took his wife from a billowing earth

he took her down black corridors

showed her exactly what she was worth

grim son of a titan him

with all this wealth you sat there with her beside you

and winter wracked our dreams

and soot blackened our hands as we put things back

the treasure you will never now spend

trinkets from some Etruscans tomb

the skull of a deer dipped in silver

basalt vases of dead flowers by the still black marble pool

a spear from Abyssinia  feathered and lethal

the dead need no armour

we shadows can never be cut

in a place with no morning

we fade into nothing