Faithless Melanthius

Copyright © 2009 Ernest Bloom (20090510).

Faithless Melanthius, cruelly tormented
for thy patient conniving, parceling out
your own miserly wages like some hoarding
marathon runner, each last drop of sweat,
thou despicable mocker, contemptible and
malicious, peering sideways from lewd eyes.
Attending thy herd, did your greed and
your lust fester so long in your breast
for Penelope? Faithless Melanthius, your
hot spirit soaring so far above beggars and
the miserly poor, just half a step lower
than your own meager status. But you
aspired to riches, did you not? In the
secret chambers of your sinful heart, you
plied every reprehensible art at your
command. You knew the song was over,
remarking those pretty maids you used
to know all in a row, you surely felt choler
rising, your best plans all laid low. Wicked
fate! Wicked destiny! To bestow the return
of the fire-hardened king! Was physical
torture so unbearable then I wonder, when
a life's dream was so precipitously dashed?
For it's never the physical abuse that lashes
so sorely, is it my friend? Did you care at all
when they hewed off your ears and nose and
cast your manhood to the esurient hounds?
Who then were the brutes? Faithless Melanthius,
your feet and hands shorn, clots dribbling
from thine uncrowned limbs, to Hades
thou must retire, while Odysseus is writ
bold in the glorious annals of Western man.