‘The Last Time I Saw Paris’ and Other Poetry by David Whippman

The Last Time I Saw Paris

You have imagined how it was, I expect:
Troy’s famous towers burning, the city wrecked,
the lines of weeping captives marched away,
the streets strewn with corpses, the shore blood-flecked.

And the woman  who caused it all:  why, me!
Crying to  throw myself into the sea,
to join my lover Paris among the  dead.
Helen of Troy I will forever be!

Such is the legend. Now I’ll tell the truth.
Menelaus was ugly and uncouth
I admit. But at least he was a man.
Paris was just a silly shallow youth.

Except he wasn’t  young, not any more.
He’d aged so much during ten years of war,
losing  his looks before he lost his life.
Paris and Troy: I found them both a bore.

Sieges and love affairs must run their course.
My husband told me not to feel remorse:
“Troy was the reason. You were the excuse,
Or else I would have  settled for divorce.”

In the Palace at Ithaca

You must face facts, gorgeous Penelope:
this is the time for love, not for regret.
Odysseus is gone. So just forget
your wedding vows, and give yourself to me.
Your husband’s lost upon the wine-dark sea,
caught by some cyclops or a siren’s net.
Waste no more time or tears on him, my pet:
surrender to the passion that must be!

Cease your delaying tactics with the thread –
none of those tricks can stop me now, my dear.
Here we both are, and there’s the waiting bed…
but wait! What’s this? Odysseus is here?
And  fully armed? Forget the things I said –
stuff all this Homer!  Time to disappear.

David Whippman is a British poet, now retired after a career in healthcare. Over the years he’s had quite a few poems, articles and short stories published in various magazines.