ARES
Favorite 2
With this piece, I wanted to go into the idea of violence, purely and without any emotion, and what better way to do that than through the God of War Ares. Originally I started off with talking about Mars, mainly because he wasn't so universally hated like Ares or deemed a coward as Ares was. I wanted a lot of focus on strength, on power.
Wife of Mars: Version 1
Every man should be strong, destructive and reaching like flames
across an open field. You are warlike—
mighty with your spear and bloodsoaked hands. Wash me of your sins
and cleanse your soul in the depths of violence ravaging every ocean of my being.
Your bruises mimic the shape of eagles soaring and spreading
over the expanse of my body like death surges over a battlefield.
You are a warrior.
Because Pinterest is really where I get all my ideas, of course, I got the first part of the first line from a caption underneath a Greek statue that was probably Achilles: "Every man should be strong." This concept of strength and what it means "to be a man" intrigued me. For a while, I've thought that social constructs regarding masculinity and femininity are harmful because they perpetuate such a rigid idea of what each should be with little allowance for those in the middle. Now that would have been really cool to write about, sort of a social criticism. Instead, though, I continued with my idea of violence!
Version 2
To be at war is to be strong, destructive and reaching like flames
across an open field. You were born from ruin and
crumbling temples into bronze, mighty with your spear and bloodied hands,
slick with death. Wash your hands of your sins and cleanse your soul
in the depths of battle ravaging the valleys of my being.
I am your scapegoat, so blame your violence on my dull blades and broken shield.
Your hands are warlike, and your bruises mimc invasion, plundering
the expanses of my body like death surges over a battlefield.
Do not hesitate at the cry of innocence or mercy—It does not matter that I do not know any better.
This first and second draft actually follow a female character, whom I apparently decided was Mars's wife. Essentially what I was trying to get at was a domestic violence-type situation where she was sort of taking the blame for his wrongdoings, which is where the line "Wash me of your sins / and cleanse your soul in the depths of violence ravaging every ocean of my being" comes from. I wanted to mimic the usual mentality of abuse victims, like 'hey, maybe I do deserve it.' And maybe with this first draft, I sort of was trying to get to the basis of my damage with strict gender construction because while we all know now that no one deserves abuse or to feel like they deserve it, at one point in time, especially being a woman, you were expected to take it and not complain about it. For many women across the world, that's still a reality, and so maybe unconsciously I knew that's what I was trying to get at. However, like I said previously, I stuck more with a depiction of violence than of a social commentary. I ended up taking the female out entirely.
Eventually I felt trapped in my writing and couldn't take any suggestions (Emma was trying to help me) on how to fix stuff because I liked how it sounded though I knew it didn't feel right still. To solve that problem, I started over completely, as I do often. I focused my attention on capturing the power and violence the above statues embody while tying in allusions to Ares/Mars.
Version 3
You stand among the ruin of temples and remain steady under the weight
of the desolation. To be at war is to be strong, destructive and reaching
like flames across an open field, so with your spear and bloodied hands,
you are mighty. Body made of bronze and fingertips coated in marble,
the ground shakes underfoot. War cries follow.
You are born from battlefields and mutilated corpses, from the ashes of dying cities.
Blood drips from your hands.
Ares/Mars are often represented by a spear, a helmet, a shield, typical military instruments as well as dogs, vultures, and fire. As Ares is viewed as a hot-headed coward in the majority of Greek mythology, a lot of his symbolism outside of military weaponry reflects that, so I tried to stick with the imagery I knew had a strong masculine/power connotation.
I also played around with the materials statues tend to be made out of: bronze and marble. These materials last (obviously since we still have the statues), and they're strong. The biggest issue I started running into was making sure both descriptions held their own without competing like in version 3.
I ended up finding this image, and I sort of fell in love with the contrast. In the last draft of this poem, I tried to almost mimic what this picture shows because for me, I get this sense of finality, of resignation and ac-ceptance, like death has no bearing and blood no meaning; taking a life means noth-ing. Maybe that's a lot to get from a picture, and maybe I'm being a bit dramatic, but I found and still find this image haunting. Despite my own personal attachments and emotions in regard to this image, it also helped me provide and develop the distinction I needed to create between bronze and marble by actually just helping me figure out I needed to get rid of bronze. I ended up focusing on the blood and marble thing almost entirely.
In the final, you'll notice I switched to third person as well as cut out the Wife/Origins of part, which I chose to do because they strengthened the specificity of the piece.
Ares
He stands steady among the ruin of temples and rages under the weight
of death and crumbling granite. To be at war is to be strong, destructive and reaching
like flames across an open field, so with his spear and bloodied hands,
he is mighty. Seeping between fingertips coated in marble, burgundy rivelets putrefy his palms.
War cries follow. He was born from battlefields and mutilated corpses, from the ashes of dying cities,
with a stained sword lifted above his head.
Blood drips from his hands.