Pandora's Box

Released the shutter
of Pandora’s box,
unleashed the clutter
of the given and the misbegotten
the entangled clasp
of what was never asked.

She looked inside at
the mismatched tryst
the hungry pangs of
flesh promised and missed,
the shivers of desire
its wishes sealed but denied.

Her curiosity had got the better,
for what the gods had foretold,
if she opened the box.
‘Aswarm with secrets, be warned’,
thus accept Pandora’s gifts for all.

Tho’ her natural charm was bestowed to attract those,
with their very own needs for her allure to appease,
the frustrated plans of leverage
had now prised loose a feverish haulage
Chaos had emerged, misery gasped, and
treachery erupted the sticky power of the corrupted;
for Pandora had not been fashioned in war.

Frightened by what had escaped
she retreated to avoid her peril.
So much for messages mercurial,
the lithe whispers of Venus,
the lustrous vigour of Aphrodite,
the harp of Apollo and Zeus’s halo,
Pandora had been given the gifts of ethereal.

For this was the puppetry of others’ design
the strings of a history’s closed up desire,
and the wiles for ulterior reasons and plans
were now seen off by the clamour of love’s fans.
No more for Pandora to envy and wonder
at the lost affections of false friends, as
from the shuttered camera obscura
ushered the warmth and fend of the
genuine enquirer, with neither
hatched plan awry nor strings attached.
For Pandora, the bearer of gifts for all
Went freely as she wished in love’s enthrall.