Gorgon!
You are a strange creature, O, Gorgon!
Snakes braid your head, unheard so far!
Your gaze turns the viewed into stone.
You, of dreadful visage and poisonous locks.
Being immortal, you do not dread the Hades, like us
Because---
You are the epitome of death,
The terrible figure, a minor deity;
Not only the ancient Greeks but
Rest of the humanity has been in thrall of you and your other sisters.
Fanged teeth, eyes popping out of sockets and protruding tongue pictured
On the walls in Athens frightened others with evil hearts and protected
Residents from harm or malevolent eyes;
Your mythic being sprang up from fear and continue to dominate the creative imagination.
At the same time, you got great powers:
Blood taken from your right side can heal,
While from the left flank, if administered,
Can prove fatal!
Same person, contrasting sides,
Dualism of sweetness and poison
Contained within!
Creativity and destruction; life and death
You are the eternal source for both.
Femininity---dreaded and revered
Goddess and demon;
Combining animal and human sides in an odd body.
Gorgon, the serpent-woman, a hybrid of terrible aspects---
You symbolise patriarchy’s deepest fears and anxieties
Snake venom,
Deadly stare,
And the capacity to turn the spectator into an object,
What deadly combo inscribed in a woman's loving heart!
Although advanced, the world deifies the ugly and markets
Such strange depictions of an imagined dark figure, for the horror industry.
How misunderstood Gorgon, you continue to be, in our age!
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