OTI:three poems and notes:10/9/16

Open To Interpretation

One Hundred And Eight

At the loom you weave their fate.
With the loan of Aphrodite's make-up
The one hundred and eight
Have been enticed
To fill the dark hall with revelry.
They are lonely suitors
Easily played.
And you wait for Odysseus
Who with Circe plays
Three hundred and sixty five days
Delayed
Among other time consuming adventures.
The one hundred and eight bring treasures
To fetch your attention
That offset the expenses
And any vulgar offenses
The household servants endure.
Happy and all smiling
They laugh at one another's efforts
To win your dream.
Maybe it will be me
Maybe it will be me
Repeated one hundred and eight times,
Desires' prayers in your rigged competition
Truly to be concluded with
One hundred and eight dooms.
After Odysseus confirms
You have been Artemis' supplicant,
He'll stand his arrows
In one hundred and eight
Unrequited chests.
Circe's pigmen fared better.

Theme Report

The story usually has it
That the suitors
We're a vulgar inferior lot,
Weaklings beside Odysseus
And a dishonor to noble Penelope.
The tragedians knew better.
Odysseus is slain by Telegonus,
His son by his girl, Circe.
Brought back from Hades
Odysseus sees Telemachus,
His son by Penelope, slain too.
And then again Odysseus is
Hades sent by Cassiphone,
Twice deadened before Agamemnon's laughing,
Such the fate of Greeks
That beset Artemis' Trojans,
Insult Penelope at her loom.

Time Was

Time was
A soldier's cache
Was his shoulders
His arms
His butt
His shins
His calves
The set of his jaw
How he rode
Astride a horse.
Now it's medals
Over a sunken chest
Over a plump belly
Riding poked through the sun roof
Of a black limousine
Before the ordered marching rows
Of girls in boots and short skirts
With lovely knees
That sing cadence and salute.

DolphinWords

Notes: it's all 'x' rated, the old Greek myths...x for sex, x for violence, x for mystery, x for 'x marks the spot on the map'...over the centuries the translations clothed it all, made it juvenile reading...adventure books for young boys...not being able to read ancient Greek, I imagine I haven't ever really read the tales as they were intended...maybe just as well!...as one explores them more and more, one realizes how coherent and interrelated they all are...and they have theological underpinnings to match any of the exegesis of the Bible...Artemis being chaste, and Aphrodite being sexy, is a refrain...all the characters have these distinctive natures that the authors work with...what an audience they must have had!...anyway, poems up, three ornamentals...embellishments...I should give Odysseus a Black Ship, but I don't like him...he's a butt!...maybe the debate is live streaming on youtube....

:)

DavidDavid