Day 29’s challenge is to write a poem based on words from a poem we might like and words derived from it.  Having spent part of the day looking at the art of Ancient Greece and then teaching my princesses about Homer and his works the Iliad (aka Song of Ilion) and it’s sequel  the Odyssey.  Okay.. I think.. that’s a little daunting but.. hey why not….

For the Most Beautiful
by Michael Romani

High summer in the shade of an olive tree
Shimmering leaves envelope him easing the heat
As the young prince offers libation for divinity
Wine hisses on the ground as a thirsty treat

Just behind young Paris, his dog begins to growl
Methepon's hackles raise and his snout quivers
With a rustling of leaves, the dog quietly howls
Paris feels a slight startle and shivers -

Three women of breathtaking beauty appear
Just beyond the shade, standing in sunlight
Paris remains startled as Methepon snarls in fear
Something in their sculpted hardness is not right

The goddesses of Ida answer their reply
Giving their names so that Paris might identify
In a worship with pomegranates and rose petals
Arinniti speaks her name and reverence settles

Eva and Atana supply this mere mortal their names
He stands there listening to their blasphemous games
But the gods only appear to priests so this cannot be
To believe otherwise would be to embrace heresy

Eva stands knowing the world is hers for the taking
Atana's wisdom plumbs the secrets of earnest lovemaking
The kind that makes a man climb to the mountain tops
Or plunge into the icy deep of an ocean of tear drops

But it is Arinniti's smile that promises everything
As a rush of desire courses and makes him want to sing
The subject of devotion each morning and each night
The holder of the golden apple glimmering in sunlight

The apple of choice given to his chosen trembling hand
There is an impossible perfection within his command
That this apple is for him to give to the most beautiful
Each goddess's face desiring the edge of the wonderful 

Atana offers toppled palaces falling to his victory
An Eve, an empire stretching as far as the eye can see
King of kings with jeweled scepter and golden crown
As the peoples of the earth all bow down

Appealing to this warrior prince, but Arinmiti offers more
Her voice whispering like a froth of ocean caressing his shore
Filling his mind with so much beauty his breath leaves his body
Her hair soft as fine spun silk and eyes as deep as liquid honey

Involuntarily, a groan of desire surrenders from his lips
Who would have dreamed it would launch a thousand ships
The image of this pale skinned beauty fills up his mind
With no thought for war, all other reason is left behind

Arinniti with her eyes as blue and clear as shallow seas
Meets his own eyes and brings him to his sense of ease
Never guessing at the losses and legends coming from his choice
Arinniti he whispers and breathes finally finding his voice

Helen becomes his with a curl of smile and apple grasped
He would not have dreamt it would be Troy soon collapsed
As Atana and Eva echoed each other in screams of rage
Dissolving into a chasm of chaos on Homer's unwritten page

With a sharp breeze whipped across this mortal's forehead
He looks down on the city of Troy that will soon be dead
Meandering rivers lined by tamarisk trees laid out below
Its decided fate being one that he'll live to know

Undecided if this might be a tricky mirage of summer heat
He wipes his forehead while the whispered name seems so sweet
Helen, the most beautiful woman in all the known world
His thoughts before him become misty and swirled

Hermes watches on at the gift of Helen he has abated
Knowing full well that the gift is one that is ill fated
To give a queen already fully wedded and lovingly bedded
This game of the gods could only be as intended

The gods care little for golden apples compared to war
Hermes cocks his head in an excitement like a wave on the shore
Listening in on the sharpening of weapons, bronze on stone
Soon the mortals war would play tragically on until Troy is gone

What is it to the gods to spill a little blood on the plain 
It would be told as a brave epic and not seen as a stain
To tell the tale of heroes fighting and sadly dying
Columns of soot and ash would hide the tears of mothers crying

It will be the pride of Greek kings to fight for this woman
A trick of the fates and played out as only the gods can
The contest for the most beautiful has only begun
And by the gods will be by some lost and others won

(c) April 29, 2017 Michael Romani