Auriga

I was spawned an unsavory birth

Reared from a cripple's

Seed upon the Earth.

Fleshed in scales, ophidian form,

Undulating amid derision and scorn

Athena conferred my immortality,

But held by the blight of deformity.

An aberration best left to die,

Nurtured, presented, swathed in jewels,

To an indolent host, whose aged eye

Condoned two avaricious hands.

But each felt twin cuspate brands,

And both daughters fell,

Dissolved of skin, their death-wails

Tolling like a penitent knell.

I leapt on a surpassing manhood

Auriga's four-horse chariot,

Fiercely driven to strike,

Escutcheon bearing Medusa's

Head upon a goat-skinned cloak.

Pallid emblems fell, routed,

As blood splattered from spilled steel;

I then was crowned in obsidian gems

While opponents defected, kneeled.

The wrathful trident of Poseidon

Was held aloft with reprisal;

His armada roared in opposition,

Ermined with spearing composition.

No amnesty in reach, no Olympian's

Relent, just corpses on the ruby shore.

Many years ruled I,

Then, consumed by Time,

Placed upon the stars,

Draped with Aegis's shine