Long poem here, but I absolutely love it. My suggestion: Listen to Claude Debussy's The Sunken Cathedral while you read my poem, cuz that's how I wrote it in the first place.
The bell tower rings; the pendulum swings—
one, two, three, four, five, six—
not yet, the bells keep ringing; the pendulum keeps swinging—
seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve—
midnight is here, where Cinderella flees from the prince.
She runs down the stairs, leaving her glass slipper.
A token of her night of wonder, an invitation for the prince to not lose her
Forever
to her stepmother, and her two brutish stepsisters.
As gown turns into rags, silk to patched apron, diamonds to cinder,
the transparent water off the coast, versatile in nature,
falls down
like the magical carriage returned at the whim of the fairy godmother,
The capsule opens into the forgotten island of Ys with its cathedrals and their keepers.
but at this hour, no one can see her,
as a wretched maid instead of a princess,
as a sprawling beauty—roof and wall and door and arch—and not an undersea monster.
Yet as the watery skin peel away,
out from the gargoyle comes a squirt, out from the eaves a steady river.
In the moonlight’s silver,
the painted windows shimmer, longing, begging, bargaining for the attention it deserved.
Sadly, no eyes there were to witness her,
nor her transient exposure, to the night’s equivocal luster,
feeble compared to the robust sun, or a gracious goddess who’ve kept in her memory
the owls, the tides, and the forgotten cathedral’s splendor.
But already, the water at its base toss in a fervor,
ready to swallow her, again down under the sea to quench the kraken’s hunger.
She isn’t ready, however.
One, two, three, four, five, six—
The bells are the cog; the pendulum is the spring. And together, they are time’s protectors.
It’s not of their concern that she needed another
five minutes, ten, or twenty-four hours.
She followed their schedule, not vice versa—
seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve—
The bells maintain their beats; the pendulum maintains its cadence.
She was a beautiful creature, an architectural feat, adorned from door jamb figures to soaring towers.
She embraced the grand organ’s symphony and the pew of reverent worshippers.
One, two, three, four, five, six—
Who is there to plead her case? None whatsoever.
The water rises to her waist,
girdles her, paralyzes her, and abducts her back underwater.
Her cry was a whisper—
Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve—
Time’s up. She sinks down, or does the water strike first?
There’s none to testify,
none who were there to vindicate her.
A sea apart, the bells still ring; the pendulum still swings—
One, two, three, four, five, six—
Unfortunately, their notes do not welcome Prince Charming who found the slipper’s owner.
Only her forlorn wails greet any listener—
Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve—
the night’s wonder fade, and she’s no longer
the princess who waltzed in a palace,
but rather,
back to the servant covered in cinder.
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