Forgotten Ground Regained

Jocasta

(from the poem sequence, "An Alphabet of Goddesses")
She had guessed long ago · but gave up the thoughtas too grubby, too godless. The green in his eyehad a family strangeness? That failed to stick.There were gaps in his story, but so it goes.Coincidence rules · in cradles not royalas on couches in Corinth. Kings command,gods garble. Pieces slip from the game.Some said in malice · she might have been his mother,but bitching throve · in bored Thebes.She married him, cherished him, gave him four children.The great bedroom was blue · and blazing with gold.Rain rang on the roof; white sheets rustled.When the sun was near · he would stretch naked,fall on her at cockcrow · with uncooled force.Yet his mate was his mother, as mouths had breathedand as she had half known · yet needed him the more.When everything was revealed · she veiled herself, vomited,ran with a rough rope · under the raftersand swung in purple · to be purged of her son.
Part of Forgotten Ground Regained: A Journal of Alliterative Verse, Issue 8, Fall, 2025: Norse and Icelandic Forms
Note from the Editor:
This poem is not in any historic form. It is what Dennis W. Wise, in his Speculative Poetry and the Modern Alliterative Revival, calls impressionistic alliterative verse. (It is probably about 5 of 10 on his scale from impressionism to faithfulness of historical alliterative form.)
“Jocasta” shows what a great modern poet can do if they take the idea of alliterative verse and run with it, letting alliteration fall where the rhythm dictates.
Note that this poem is not in any of the Norse forms. It is inspired by Old English verse. Two facts make that obvious: first, it consists of two-part lines arranged in half-lines. If this were Old Norse poetry, each half-line would be in a line of its own. Second, there are no stanzas. Old Norse poetry always has structured stanzas.
Copyright © Estate of Edwin Morgan, 1985. This poem first appeared in Selected Poems (1985) and was reprinted in The Collected Poems of Edwin Morgan. Reprinted with the permission of Carcanet Press.
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