Dorothy Poem by Linda Hepner

I am become the goddess of forsaken women,
explosive ending to familiar life,
horizon blossoming with promise but
spreading its poison with a palette knife.

I am the spinster saint of all forgotten women,
Griselda, laying out her rival’s bed,
for granted, without status as a wife,
in recompense a footnote round my head.

I am the legless Little Mermaid, loving, hoping,
who cannot change her nature, or her tale;
and plunges in the foam washed to extinction
leaving her journal on a cross-shaped nail.

Hagar, the twice-expelled when she had borne her master’s
son; abandoned, parched, far from the tent
she’d known since she was bought to draw his water
when young, desired, used, her youth now spent.

I walked in beauty once, and yet when we two parted
you kept our secret till your hero death,
although our child Medora haunts you deeply,
the world ignores my gift, creative breath.

I am a second shadow muse of poets: sister,
my secret locked in guilt-inspiring rhyme
behind their greatness, djinni of the lantern,
while they immortal icons of all time.


LRH 3.1.09

Some notes of explanation if needed
Dorothy Wordsworth, close companion sister of William who finally married and had children; William was in love with his wife, usurping his sister. D finally went a bit insane.

I am become…. Words uttered by J. Robert Oppenheimer when he saw the fruit of his years, the A-Bomb and it’s mushroom cloud which everyone said was amazing.

The tale of Patient Griselda can be read in Chaucer’s The Clerk’s Tale
She wasn’t really a spinster however.
Footnote: a personal wry comment.

Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. As far as I know the mermaid didn’t keep a journal but I do (being wry again) .

Hagar needs no comment.

Penultimate verse, first line: two quotations from two poems by Byron who was very close indeed with his half-sister Augusta Leigh who gave birth to a wild daughter, Elizabeth Medora. Medora is a goddess of gifts.
Once you know that, the Byron poems should be censored immediately!

Last verse: guilt guilt guilt! A djinni is a genie. Meanwhile although the sister-muse is bitter the men they inspired became icons of literature.