My photograph of the replica at the Carnegie Museum.
Happy National Poetry Month! This means it’s time for NaPoWriMo! Will you be writing a poem each day this month? I will be challenging myself to write at least two everyday. To kick things off, I wanted to share my first poem of the month with you. The piece below was inspired by the photograph I took at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. After doing a little research I discovered the sculpture is a replica cast of the Winged Victory of Samothrace, a marble sculpture created in the 2nd century BC of the Greek goddess Nike. The real deal can be found at the Louvre. Needless to say my new goal is to get myself to Paris and see the original sculpture that has inspired me. Check out my poem “Goodbye Halo” below, and happy poetry writing to you!
The beautiful statue on her pedestal in Paris.
Goodbye Halo
She is not the first angel
to plummet from sky to earth,
to crawl her freezing, broken form
over to the underground fire
he burns at night,
but she is the first
he has fallen in love with.
She is victory,
keeping her sins hidden
between feathered wings
because somewhere between
darkness and a battle above
the clouds, she unraveled
and the light, the sun, the day
all became too much.
Go ahead and fall, angel,
the devil will greet you
and say, “hello pet,
hello my headless snake
who is still my favorite,
who is still my most deadly.”
Fear the light, angel
and dig crosses sharpened
to points into the flesh
of your neck, leave jagged
wounds as you detach
your face, your head,
and say goodbye heaven,
goodbye halo.
Sara Tantlinger 