Mis-Prognostication - Muse's Advisory, Nov. 9 – Clio

'Jesus, those ideals

you and your zealots tout

are just a crock of shit,'"

the Blessed Mother says.
“'Turning the other cheek

won't stop a spear;

without survival of the fittest

you'll all end up livestock

for the Parthian lunatics.'

But you can count on kids

to do the opposite."
She takes a sip of wine.

Zeus takes a slice of brie.

The cats purr lustfully.
“They're young,” he says.

“Give them a few millennia

and they'll come round

if they haven't run

civilization into the ground

by then.

then to beasts?

Where does it end?”
The sun has started

to condense, grow redder,

rounder as it draws

near the Aegean

where Zeus once

in youthful virulence

swam bloodthirsty to kill

the dragon Kampe.

“the wheat-head bends

unharvested in autumn wind

and grape feeds crow and fox.

Their sect will shrink and die,

hoping to resurrect.

Asking a foe for love—

it's just psychotic!”

but naive, dead wrong.

Fast-forward two millennia:

the Christians still hold sway,

their ingenuity

to swear off savagery

and do it anyway.

Adieu - Muse's Advisory, Nov. 10 – Euterpe:
"John's due to come today,"

she says to Zeus.

"The cats all know.

Look how

and prowl.

Go on back to your cave.

Since Patmos took

him in, exiled,

he hasn't been too

steady in the head,

but fills his brain

with grim apocalypse.

If he finds you here

it will set him off, I fear.

Zeus drains

his cup and stands.
"At least they let him visit still.

He always brings fresh fish.

Will you come back tonight,

after he leaves," she asks,

for octopus and chips?"
"I know you loved that boy,

Who didn't, me included?

That way he had

of looking up so soulfully!

I blame myself a little bit

for his decayed condition.

Since I raised Patmos from

the bottom of the sea,

nothing has been quite right there.

I covered it with royal palms

but when Orestes came in flight

after the murder of his mother,

Furies burned them down

to hunt him better,

and the island's homed

one wild-eyed outcast or another

ever since."
She stands and kisses him.

"He was the only one

who never watered true with fake

or faith with doubt

that Christianity could carry

souls into your sight.

The last thing

he could bear to see

is you here relishing your solitude,

impartial, aging,

more excited

than all his piety.

and learn our limitations

and delights—

John certainly got that right."

Zeus says.

ever the optimist

and loathe to judge

another's view of life!

Remember our first kiss?

I prayed to be your wife

but thank god—

all the gods!—

I didn't get my wish.

You're not the husband type,

but as a next-door neighbor,

Thunder, you're just right."

a flickering glance

in contrast to the smile

immobile on his lips.

The octopus and mullet

in his sack already stink

but from its heart

he fishes out

a wickered flask

of Patmos tsipouro.
“Shlom, Miriam,” he says,

“mleetha na’ami, Maran imakh,

"to hear my native tongue,

but let's dispense,

dear friend,

with the formality.

I've two cups here—

do we propose to let them

suffer any more

from thirst?”
“Mother,

Yeshua comes to me,

His face aflame,

and bids me write down

visions in His name.

Ah, chaya!

As He turned wine

to blood

to set us free,

may what we

wet our whistles with

this day

likewise infuse our veins

with sanctity!”
“Chaya!” I toast,

and drink.

he thinks me pious as a presbyter

and I think him a youth

in spite of trembling hands

and hair as silvery as Samos Bay

on a thinly misted day.

he says, pouring again,

“immaculate conception

will exempt you

from the ravages of death.”
I laugh. “It hasn't worked

a lick for age!”

The cats mewl sweetly

and suggestively

they brush their cheeks

along John's foot.

“I have fresh bread and olives.

Come, let me make a fire

and cook lunch.”
“No,” John says,

“the boat that brought me

waits below:

my hosts only allow

this weekly trip

because they fear

Yeshua will send earthquakes

if they don't!

There's gossip

you and Zeus are friends!

The depth

of superstition in this land

has led both

Paul and Philip to despair!”

takes its name from Zmirna,

heathen Queen

of single-breasted Amazons!

And pagan Greeks of Chios

say there are as many worlds

as grains of barley!”
“—Zeus sat where you sit,

earlier today.”

yea, a heptad of gold candlesticks,

a golden bra,

a stumbling-block,

a sardine stone

and seven seals,

a lamb of seven horns and eyes,

four horses—

milk, red, jet and flax—

a moon—"
I take his fevered hands

and cool them with my own.

We stand.

“We'll always remain near, John,

I beside this grove

which you obtained for me,

you on monastic Patmos."

his cheeks.

at the foul-smelling sack.

May I walk with you

back down the Mount?

I too have business

down in Ephesus.
Our friend in common

Miriam

I laid in wait

for you like this,

but I'm beyond

the age of pussy-whip.
Is that striped sail

the ship that takes

you back to Patmos?
Oh, I did some sailing

in my day, like you—

saw Rome,

Phoenicia, and

the many isles.
There's a promontory

named for me

at Haifa: The Carmel,

not very far from

Miriam's Nazareth.
She says she knew

your mother Salome

in Bethsaida,

where I also

have a temple;

and she speaks so fondly

of the two of you.
You have

your mother's face.

I have to say.

I wanted you

to hear my voice,

maybe defang

the bogeyman

a little bit.
I know you'll write

what you're inspired

to write.

I don't request

you soften anything,
just that you know

who is it

sits with Miriam

on winter afternoons

in gentleness.

A Bit Farther - Muse's Advisory, Nov. 13 – Zeus:
John, you're the epicenter

of a great ferment.

but you're creating real change

in the world,
I'm barely keeping pace.
Look what your brethren

have accomplished

since Yeshua hid his face.
You set the world on fire

and I've no doubt can stoke

the holy flame yet higher:
a universal church

with its basilica in Rome

is not beyond your reach.
Imagine a million children

memorizing every word

of what you teach.

Just Before a Storm - Muse's Advisory, Nov. 14 – John the Divine:
Miriam feels as if

some figment

of her discontent

was planted in her son,

Zeus broke in

from the groaning sky.
I didn't lift my head

but kept on walking

like I didn't hear.
Yeshua didn't spring

out of the deosphere

self-made,

he went on

in his choice Hellenic arrogance,

any more than

your own divinations

come verbatim

from a god who has

no better means to air them.
His grain tumbled

from a basket

idly strewn

by a young Don Juan

with trim

on his mind,

fell

hidden in the scat

of sparrows

scattered by the talons

of a hawk,

or was the seed

of su teresi,

Turkish watercress,

escaping its maternal brook

to mat

as if miraculous

a hillside runnel far

from any ancestor.
She's always felt herself in him,

the urge to take

the road less traveled,

transcend pain.
A Greek-god crock of shit,

pure, pseudo, pop

psycho-analysis.
I hurried on.

Game - Muse's Advisory, Nov. 15 – Terpsichore:
My mother Memory

danced me in rings

and sang,
Terpsichore, Terpsichore,

Unclip your kinky hair.

Don't think the earth is fair

Or that there's gold in meek.

The only way to savor life

Is to unclip, unclip,

Unclip your kinky hair.
I had a lover once

well versed in trickery

like Zeus

who made a big deal of my hair

when I complained about my dad

seducing this, that, and the other

goody,

like Mom's

is that the loving wool

she pulled over my eyes is gone,

not being serenaded

by a Juliet so devious
but that

the days I spend now

in comparison

are much too tedious.

who stole my mother's place,

I envy Miriam—
"The Miriam," Whored Byron asks,

"we ten invented here?"
Do you suppose I made her up?

Oh no, she's real!

all afternoon

watching gay baghlahs

and stern triremes

make the breakwater

below
and wonders,

helping poets

gain a handhold,
isn't quite

a black cat

on a hot tin roof
nor even

the warm calico

of fondness.
I'm not sure how we muses

got it in our heads

that we'd be spinsters too
but I would drop this lame gig

like a hot potato

for one week with Cat Ballou.

Schreibblockade (Writer's Block) - Muse's Advisory, Nov. 16 – Thalia:
Terpsichore,

self-pitying again?

We're not here,

Sister, for regrets

or might-have-beens.

That's what the pub's for

afterwards.

Euterpe needs to pee,

so pull yourself together

if you can,

and go relieve her

up at inspiration's fountainhead.

I'll spell you here.
Lieber Schimpanse-Byrons,

ein Geschenk von Goebbels

und meiner Schwester Clio:
"The yellow stars are humane, hygienic and prophylactic, since some Jews can't be recognized by external signs. When they first appeared on the streets of Berlin, what a surprise! Who knew there were so many? We all suddenly saw someone who had always seemed so harmless—perhaps complained or criticized a bit more than normal, but nobody thought was a Jew!

"And now we see Jews walking with non-Jews. Their excuse? Jews are human too. I don't deny that, nor the humanity of murderers or child rapists—though I never feel the need to parade down the Kurfürstendamm with them!

"Jews have a trick. They know the good-natured Michael in us, ready to shed tears for any injustice, so now they pretend they are all little babies and fragile old ladies! They send the pitiable outside. But when we feel pity for an old woman in a Jewish star, remember that a son of her distant uncle is a warmonger named Baruch or Untermayer who stands behind Mr. Roosevelt, urging him to war, so that a U.S. soldier will one day shoot Michael's only son dead.

"If we have a flaw in our German character, it's thinking everyone as good natured as us. That’s how we are. But there are differences between people, as between animals: some are good, some bad. That the Jew lives among us is not proof that he belongs among us, any more than a flea is a household pet because it hides in our sofa. It isn't there because it loves us."

a pimp, a dog, a flea, a goy, a Jew,

a crippled President, a yellow star

like Tinkerbell

or that little ball

that bobs over the notes you

have to sing—

a sort of karaoke thing?

Mel Brooks, Kurt Vonnegut.

I recommend you

play with word replacement.

You're too dainty to reheat

a plate half-eaten by a Nazi?
Kein Problem. Vorwärts!

2,415,356 more steps.

wrote Kallimachos.

you were a child once too

when he wrote Brother Titus

that shook Mount Ida weren't

the same kind that knocked

the cocky Saul of Tarsus

off his horse.

Who guessed that it was you?

Why would you smite

the persecutor of a cult

that was a foe of yours?
Who ever sees how sly you are?

How much you work

behind the scenes

to boost your son

and earn your current ease?
Who parted the clouds

that shadowed Jordan's sands?

Who perched Yeshua

on the desert mountaintop

and offered him the Holy Land?

And when he pushed the cup

away until a time

more opportune,

who eased him down

on oread's wren-feathered hands?

you might have just once

let me hear the oracle

of your white cockatoo

your lightning-bolt.

The truth was

Miriam had somehow sank a root

into your barren ground

and for the first time

in your long career

you thought about an heir.

Extended - Muse's Advisory, Nov. 18 – Calliope to Zeus:
But you didn't think

enough. You let him think

he was your only son,

and where does that leave us

who make our livings

as your underlings?—

stuck here garlicking word-sausage,

very possibly retrainable

but too dispirited to lift our wings.
And all our half-siblings?

The last one heard from:

Klotho, making headlines

when she sold her spindle

to the Drs. Edwards

and Kevorkian cartel,

and then the next day

when the FDA disclosed

she'd taken bribes from

John the Baptist's mom

and from protagonists

in Robert Heinlein

and in Walter Mosley's books?
Yeshua seems so lonely.

There's this idyll of him lolling

on Cloud Nine with you and Miriam—

harps, angels, saints—

you hung him out to dry,

and like a gay sex addict

he sashays

leafed-over country crosscuts

and dark alleyways,

whispering love

to adherent minds.

to give up your retirement;

no, quite the opposite.

It puts a warm glow

in my heart to see how

stable you've become.

I just think finishing

unfinished business

with your kids

means more contentment all around,

especially for her—

he's all she's has—

No one's

our family's legendary bickering

over imperium

is something of the past,

we could have some fun

if you and Miriam just

passed a pipe around

and made the introductions.

The Kind Stepmother - Muse's Advisory, Nov. 19 – Miriam to Muses:


Dears, your father's not the bronco 
he once was, but he's still Zeus: 
guilt-tripping him won't get his ear.
The only squawk he hears
is his Carian-crested cockatoo,
St. Paul the paraclete.

Meeting Yeshua won't recoup 

And he'll kill  your joie de vivre!

but what are laughs

but tears by other means?
Unlike poor Romeo and Juliet

united finally in death by drugs,

most lovers shipwrecked,

nightmared and romance-marooned

in Shakespeare or in Aristophanes

are casualties of madness:

Cupids lifted in by cranes.
The pun? the clever turn of phrase?

the swish and twirl of magic wands?

That's me.

I know 1000 ways to insult blondes;

mock country folk;

poke fingers at the Sapphic dike;

recite That Nigger's Crazy inside out;

mix recipes for love potions from 1 to 99;

play every wedding dance

from Etta's sweet “At Last”

and Trini's smooth “Bésame Mucho”

to “Hava Nagila” and “The Tarantella";

reweave the tales of Scheherazade

to keep the shah awake

for one more night.
The funny thing?

It's pretty much the same:

the sudden plunge into despair

or love so blinding and erasive,

victims call its lightning-bolt

first sight.

Kismet - Muse's Advisory, Nov. 21 - Thalia:
But this

eternal, golden, afternoon-lit

interlude above majestic Ephesus—
whose house of Artemis

raised high by Croesus

won the Sky God's kindness
—this,

beyond what even dramatists

legitimately insist is possible,

a labyrinth of story twists

and sheer coincidence

enough to overtax

even those innocents

addicted to theatrical narcotics

whose antagonists

are paper thin,

and Cupid's toxic

archery accomplishes

the most unlikely couplings—
unless the whirlwind

in John's brain

is not psychosis

nor Yeshua's newly risen

and as yet ungoverned grace,

but crafty Zeus

inspiring the apostle

in delirium

to pander him—
no sooner had John hidden

grief-wracked Miriam

on Mount Koressos
than her admirer rose

from ancient granite throne

and quit his nearby cave

to take an evening walk,

than the handsome goat

she first laid eyes on

over thirty years ago,

now he came upon her

as she sat and wondered

what to make

of cats, a gurgling spring,

and the extraordinary light—

in all the corners of the earth,

Zeus must have had a hand in it.

If not,

this plot is utterly ridiculous.