Egyptian Gods
Egyptian pharaohs scribed poetry on the backs of Chattel slaves
& Asiatics captured in wars, as they labored large beasts
pushing & pulling limestone blocks always upward
set in place by chisel, wooden mallet, fitted, finished
pointing toward a cold & planetary heaven the color of Mars
Colossal monoliths, building footprints to future stars
galaxies
And all those temples, with sensual hieroglyph columns
reaching upward, etching your prayers ever closer
to celestial islands of arrogant Gods, for which kings named
Ra
God of the Sun
God of Moon Maat
Ament: Greeter of the Dead
Our love is an ancient thing, belonging to a very distant past & no longer in existence per Siri & our goodbyes now so far away; limestone pastel & motor, stacked & archived, pointing to no future civilization, & for sure not mars
All our poems washed, wrapped in Ecru cotton linen, placed in hot sand & forgotten
Pyramid Construction -- Michael Brewer
Egyptian pharaohs scribed poetry on the backs of Chattel slaves
& Asiatics captured in wars, as they labored large beasts
pushing & pulling limestone blocks always upward
set in place by chisel, wooden mallet, fitted, finished
pointing toward a cold & planetary heaven the color of Mars
Colossal monoliths, building footprints to future stars
galaxies
And all those temples, with sensual hieroglyph columns
reaching upward, etching your prayers ever closer
to celestial islands of arrogant Gods, for which kings named
Ra
God of the Sun
God of Moon Maat
Ament: Greeter of the Dead
Our love is an ancient thing, belonging to a very distant past & no longer in existence per Siri & our goodbyes now so far away; limestone pastel & motor, stacked & archived, pointing to no future civilization, & for sure not mars
All our poems washed, wrapped in Ecru cotton linen, placed in hot sand & forgotten
Pyramid Construction -- Michael Brewer
Ra began as a sun god. By the 25th-24th centuries BCE he was primarily identified with the sun at noon, which was either his eye or his body. He created his son Shu the god of wind and Tefnut the goddess of rain. Warrior goddess Sekhmet was the Eye of Ra, created by the fire in his eye; her breath formed the desert. Apophis, the god of chaos, was born from Ra's umbilical cord, indicating that evil is the result of free will rather than a primordial force; he was decapitated by Bastet, another of the Eyes of Ra. Ra's blood transformed into Hu (authority) and Sia (mind). Ra created the seasons, months, and all forms of life by calling each of them into existence by speaking their secret names. However, mankind was created from his tears and sweat. When Ra was in the Duat, the underworld, he merged with Osiris, the god of the dead, and thus became the god of the dead as well. Later he was merged with Osiris' son and brother Horus, the god of the sky and kingship, as Ra-Horakhty (Ra, who is Horus of the Two horizons), the ruler of all parts of creation (sky, earth, Duat). When Amun rose in importance he was merged with Ra; Amun-Ra was regarded as the transcendental, self-created creator deity, the champion of the poor or troubled, and the central figure in personal piety to the point of virtual monotheism in which other gods became manifestations of him: "Lord of truth, father of the gods, maker of men, creator of all animals, Lord of things that are, creator of the staff of life." Amun and Ra were also part of a trinity with Ptah, the god of crafts, architecture, carpentry, shipbuilding, and sculpture who existed before anything else and, by his will, thought the world into existence and continues to preserve the world and the permanence of the royal function. "All gods are three: Amun, Re and Ptah, whom none equals. He who hides his name as Amun, he appears to the face as Re, his body is Ptah."
ReplyDeleteMaat personified the concepts of truth, balance, order, harmony, law, morality, and justice; and regulated the stars, seasons, and the actions of mortals and the deities who had brought order from chaos at the moment of creation.
Ament ("She of the West"), a fertility goddess, was the consort of Aqen, a deity of the underworld who guided Ra through parts of the Duat and who, as the "mouth of the time" from which the gods and demons pulled the "rope of time." Ament lived in a tree looking out at the sunset, the entrance to the Duat, where she provided the newly dead with food and drink to provide sustenance through the "field of reeds" (paradise).
Siri was a character in Dan Simmons' 1983 story "Remembering Siri," which was the genesis of his 1989 novel "Hyperion." Her lover Merin Aspic was a spaceman. Due to the effects of relativistic time dilation, each time they met he aged only a bit, while she aged at the normal rate. Eventually, before their 8th meeting, she died of old age.
ReplyDeleteEcru (from the French "écru," raw) is the color of unbleached linen or silk, a pale or light grayish yellow or btown. Used as a noun the word dates to 1836, as an adjective to 1869. Until ca. 1930 the word was a synonym for beige, a French word for the color of natural wool.