Epibicurious · 15 min read · SEASON 2

Prologue of Part 1

"I ask for a drink

Stiff and profuse"

"The orators of old

Asked for a muse

Lord Byron a hero and

Yeats for love unrequited

Of these things I have no use"

"As brought again I am to think

Of how I ended up on stage

And of my weeks-long endeavor

I’m not quite bitter but

How can I in little words

In rhyme or flat explain

The human condition

To others who know it better

The answer is probably loose lips

A bit of liquor and a story

It’ll be the kind that will be remembered

A little too long, and a little too odd

"Homer sang of leaders’ follies

Virgil sang of a man, arms, and glory

I take a sip, sigh and try to write an epic

Live before your eyes, episodic

One that will touch a nerve or two

There may be rhymes, there may be meter

A laugh here and there, a cringe,

I’m open to it, it’s a common matter

With works in progress which can change

From one week to another"

But it will be weaved before you"

"Each time I have five minutes, and first will spend seconds

Thirty or fifty depending on how lazy

I was the last week in spinning the yarn

To catch you up to the collections

Which you may have missed

Or tie loose ends from the last sesh"

"Sections may overlap for context

They also might not, just rest

And mark your calendar

This telling will take an odd semester

Let the experience thrive

Although you may be a bit perplexed

At first"

"Despite the awkward delivery I hope

That you will see yourself in the myth

And the telling of a story that has touched

Most young adults I know

The ambiguity of strong feelings

An unnatural connection

Being the playthings of a bigger fate

Pawns in a futile gambit

And the uneasy marriage between

The best intentions, and the pain they cause

And the confusion between two tellings

So be still, be attentive, be aroused"

"I am aware that such a form

Of poetry in performance

Now a days is rare but

A long road breeds thoughts

Connections or Stockholm syndrome

Whatever comes from such a chance

Or revolving audience

So settle in, make yourselves captive

Close your eyes, let your mind roam

To a scene"

"Contemplate past lives, lost loves

Ceremonies, and tragedies

And see an old bearded man

At a reception. You get in closer

And ease into his conversation"

Lamia

by Epibicurious

The Lamentations of Appolonius

"My distaste? For weddings, you may ask?

And where it all began, well

That’s a story, long and tiresome

And indeed the few invitations to tell it

I receive for me are also bothersome

It’s not about the registry

And needing to buy gifts

Nor is it about the food

Or the need to dress up lavishly

While only being served

Sauces to sample

And oh, how I eat so clumsily

Or just as Jupiter pearls around

His many orbiting bodies

The exercised youth parade

With their entourage celestially

In the same oblong movements

That I myself had made

And now look on futilely

From far a field

No no, it’s not jealousy

No it’s not like you think

Not adultery nor how love

Over the years may build,

And at climax stall

And rather than decrease gradually,

when both are old and ugly and most

Likely to leave each other anyway

Only instead quickly fall,

I’m sure it’s not posterity

No. It is out of fear, it is the fear of ruin,

Degradation and watching

Things fall apart like the telling occasion

Where hauntingly, in the middle of a ceremony,

An uninvited orator made the bride

Simply disappear, poof, fade into the air

By barging onto the stage

And delivering an uninvited toast

Now, the heavy books of medicine

And even the Annals of History

Have never marked the cause of death as “embarrassment”

And indeed according to theology

Nothing there and then, qualified as sin

So punishment divine was without warrant

In terms of punishment of man

Jurisprudence on the matter rather conservatively

Stated the union was made legally

Yet the coroner’s report?

I must confess, read the following testament:

The bride was gone, the groom dead from a broken heart

Our only reference to make any sense of this?

I’m afraid it is Mythology

Oh it reminds me of

When I was young and not so smart

I was once betrothed but

Cold skin yet beating heart

Had that love of mine

Clenched jaw, a tongue, sharp,

And for me no time

We danced about those days bygone

I was coiled in her embrace, ambivalent

We saw many suns but just one moon

Go up, as far as I’m aware

But I might just have been somnambulant

And I awoke

But where was I? Oh yes...

Weddings

And disciplines of study

Best you forget what I said before,

For no such lessons can prepare a pupil

Not even one of learned men

And so bid farewell to your readings

Now that my thoughts are ready

It’s best I start from the beginning

"Damn, that's crazy."

"Really, I should go ..."

A friend had begged my shoulder

Shuttering from an encounter stressed

Or so it seemed

He called me because aside from being friends

and none the wiser, I am a little older.

A healthy lad at 22

and sent away by sea

with hopes and shaky knees

After four days of that ship’s sway

He landed, and vomited at

(or is it on) the Peloponnese

Corinth was the town

In which he was to stay

To dig up the past, and make it known

But instead as he told me, he had dreams

Of black, curly hair, and a nightgown

Barely sewn together by golden seams

Morning would arrive like an uninvited guest

And he would wake,

an image in his head seared

And wanting still to rest

Would pack his excavation gear

On his back were brushes, chisels, and hammers

while in his head lived on these vivid encounters

As days went on he grew slim

Not interested in food

At night he’d leave his window open

And started sleeping in the nude

As if to be the thing consumed

Which my suspicions proved

Because one night he’d be awakened

By a pain, quick, sharp, and shrewd ...