yesterday's practice poem is a bit long and rambling—a bit on purpose, i suppose. the prompt was "take this book of flower meanings, find a flower, and riff on its meaning." my resulting poem builds off the myth of the golden fleece/argonauts/medea/jason and the flower colchicum, or meadow saffron.

 the flower colchicum is named after the land of colchis from greek mythology, which is where the golden fleece and the sorceress medea are from. in the book of flower meanings from the prompt, it represents "my best days are past," which got me thinking of Jason—specifically an older, decrepit, resentful Jason. in some myths, jason goes back to iolkos and rules as the king there, but that feels so unlikely given how he and medea murdered its previous king...

 anyway i had fun with this even tho i wouldn't consider it terribly "good"; maybe i'll come back to it and revise it later, but it was neat getting to "play a character" narratively.

 anyway, enjoy!

day 19 - flowers for old jason

by tophie palmer

#napowrimo2026, apr 19

oh, medea, my dear medea..

you old bitch. 

we two awful pragmatists

made good use of each other, i suppose..

one an idiot, one a witch..

 

you used me to escape your barbarous home

——damnable colchis——

for prosperous greece.

you saw us dreamy-eyed argonauts, you saw a way out, you saw an opportunity for a new life,

you betrayed your family, your poor brother, your father,

you betrayed your country, everyone, for love or a fresh start, whichever,

you escaped with us and that golden fleece

(wherever the hell that ended up..)

butchering your brother’s body to slow your father down in his pursuit..

we dreamy-eyed argonauts shared looks but didn’t stop you..

but i should have known then my promises of marriage would doom me the same.

 

for when i saw my opportunity in the princess of corinth and took it,

you——who’d seen such opportunity in me in colchis and taken it——

you denied me my royalty and royal heirs here..

you melted my princess bride-to-be with pretty robes

(her poor father, the king, too..)

and our two boys.. you slit their throats on our hearth..

you killed my only sons

and fled with infant corpses triumphant..

you denied me even their burial,

you denied me everything,

all for jealousy and woe

or whatever..

 

and now i sit here, unthroned and miserable,

caressing the meadow saffron of damnable colchis,

“my best days are past,” they say..

they do say that, you know, about me,

that my adventuring days are done

and old age is upon me

and i haven’t anything left to show..

no sons or ship or comrades or fleece or throne

just some patchy colchicum, some foolish flowers

for a foolish man

 

 

photo from botanus