Isolation in the event of joy
Forgetting
the figures in my dream
even though their joy
is the isotope that remains
on my waking brain
like static energy.
The fragments of dream dust
are likely to remain all day
imposing upon reality
in a surreal beautiful way.
My dream
could have been more profound,
a more intimate background
for conducting my day
making my well worn way
more like play
but the seed that was in the flower
never did grow.
The deep oceanic stillness
never formed a wave.
The lost road to work
is lined with paper trees
shadowed in the thin light of dawn
as mind whispers gather
midst fog strewn fields
recently born in a stream of consciousness.
I am alone
singing a song I once knew
but have not heard since.
It was like a tribal dance
in the romance of my memory.
Sitting in my car
looking at the morning star.
At the death of my pen
I eulogized a period.
Though mumbled thoughts
came off in broken ink
they were like the terrible howling of silence,
poetic white noise scattering my voice
into subliminal whispers
I can’t tune into.
Pandora Opens Box -- Su Blackwell
Pandora Opens Box -- Su Blackwell
Prometheus created mankind and stole fire from the gods for its benefit, angering Zeus, who, according to Hesiodos, promised to "give men as the price for fire an evil thing in which they may all be glad of heart while they embrace their own destruction." He ordered Hephaistos to "mix earth with water and to put in it the voice and strength of human kind, and fashion a sweet, lovely maiden-shape, like to the immortal goddesses in face; and Athena to teach her needlework and the weaving of the varied web; and golden Aphrodite to shed grace upon her head and cruel longing and cares that weary the limbs. And he charged Hermes ... to put in her a shameless mind and a deceitful nature." Thus was created Pandora ("all-gifts"), the first woman. Despite Prometheus' warning to his brother Epimetheus not to accept any gift from Zeus, he accepted her as his wife. Zeus also gave Pandora a storage jar (pithos) as a wedding gift. She "took off the great lid of the jar with her hands and scattered all these and her thought caused sorrow and mischief to men. Only Elpis (Hope) remained there in an unbreakable home under the rim of the great jar, and did not fly out at the door.... But the rest, countless plagues, wander amongst men; for earth is full of evils and the sea is full." Their daughter Pyrrha (Fire) was the first child born of a mortal mother, and she and her husband Deukalion were the sole survivors of the Great Deluge. To repopulate the earth they cast stones over their shoulders, which became a new race of men and women.
ReplyDeleteHesiodos continued to excoriate Pandora and her progeny: "For from her is the race of women and female kind: of her is the deadly race and tribe of women who live amongst mortal men to their great trouble, no helpmeets in hateful poverty, but only in wealth. And as in thatched hives bees feed the drones whose nature is to do mischief -- by day and throughout the day until the sun goes down the bees are busy and lay the white combs, while the drones stay at home in the covered hives and reap the toil of others into their own bellies -- even so Zeus who thunders on high made women to be an evil to mortal men, with a nature to do evil. And he gave them a second evil to be the price for the good they had: whoever avoids marriage and the sorrows that women cause, and will not wed, reaches deadly old age without anyone to tend his years, and though he at least has no lack of livelihood while he lives, yet, when he is dead, his kinsfolk divide his possessions amongst them. And as for the man who chooses the lot of marriage and takes a good wife suited to his mind, evil continually contends with good; for whoever happens to have mischievous children, lives always with unceasing grief in his spirit and heart within him; and this evil cannot be healed."