EPIC

My first real job in the business

Was with a small place that did

Bespoke work -- epigrams, mostly,

And short lyrics. The timekeeper

Rang a bell when we finished a sonnet

And the staff would applaud.

We were, in our way, respectable

And could rouse a small muse

To show the licensing authorities.

There was, of course, a back door 

Where we took deliveries 

And sold dubious incantations.

It was madness to take a contract 

For an epic and madness twice over

To promise it on a short deadline.

No one went home for weeks; the old witch

From next door brought us cauldrons

Of strong coffee; the young witch

Who lived with her watched our back door

And dragooned surprised customers 

Into helping out. Retired writers,

Two of them thought dead and three 

Actually so, returned to work.

The poem itself? It could have been worse.

Not much plot: six and a half brothers 

Seek their lost birthright; five sisters

Go hunting in an ensorcelled woods.

(The remaining half of a brother

Enrolls in business school and does

Quite well for himself.) We had some luck;

Inanna, an Akkadian goddess of all work 

With concentrations in sex, war, 

Justice, knotwork, and political power 

(Between engagements for two thousand years)

Came with her lion and her complete set

Of symbols and attributes: hook-shaped reed knots, 

Eight-pointed stars, horned helmets, rosettes, doves,

Ring-headed doorposts, 

And the Planet Venus. I still see her

Occasionally; she's promised me her help 

If I leave poetry and take up war.