Skulls - Muse's Advisory, Nov. 23 - Melpomene

among the zealous flies

and swarming sacerdotal ants:
the daughters of Jerusalem,

Miriam, Magdalen,

John's mother Salome
and John himself

unbearded and effeminate,

mistakenly admitted

to the Crucifixion Grounds

from which male followers

were barred

after the incident of Peter

slicing off the ear

of Caiphas's slave.
The afternoon grew overcast

as things wore on.

Yeshua's small talk

with the highwaymen collapsed,

and there was just

the odd sob, groan

or catch of breath

that notched one of the men

or mourners nearer death.
The centurions grew bored

and started throwing dice—

the Jews, such pests in life,

were also too slow

giving up the ghost.

One of the robbers' country aunts

thundered at three o'clock

and finally roused the guards to act:

haint-blue bay turn gold.

"What became of the others

of your Twelve," she asks,

"who co-inhabited Olympos?"
"Ah yes! Delta Omega Delta

we called ourselves!—Dodekatheon—

Dēmētēr, Hēra, Poseidōnas,

yours truly Zeús, Hēphaistos,

Áphroditē, Árēs, Ártemis,

Athēnâ and Apóllō,

Hērmēs, girlish Diónysus.

We had good times up there,

quaffed immortal wines

for as long as they lasted,

when the last cask sighed:

for no one finds contentment

long without inviting time,

and time itself's iconoclastic."
"You aged?"
"Not aged. That's passive.

One by one, we bit

those airy, temporary plums

inside whose pits

attachment waits—

tanha, the Buddhists call it.

We surrendered immortality

for objects out of reach

to gods' compellent fingers.

"And they're all gone now.

The last was Hera,

headstrong, obstinate,

who finally gave in

to a sinewy young Gaul's

tradition that she come feed

under Celtic oaks.

Guarding the fiery spokes

of Helios's chariot—

what's left of them, that is,

since devious Prometheus

hid one inside a fennel stalk—"

at him for that?"

And Zeus smiled.

"Truth is, I miss the little rat.

If one day I went back,

I wouldn't be surprised

if he's the one

who sits cloud-cloaked

and keeps the furnace

of the sun well stoked.

I'd like to think, too,

Hera's lot in Holyhead

has turned out well.

On the way to middle age,

though—boy, I bet

she gave those druids hell!
Miriam took his hand

and thought, remembering

the way he'd wooed her

like a god,

from godly dharma?

Leaves him drowsing

by a humble hillside hearth?

Let's not be gulled again.

I taste him in my veins,

have every epic,

every Orphic hymn by heart:

the modus operandi of immortals

is withstanding change,

time's author in the rising sun,

the falling sand,

the trembling of caesium.
So yes, it is a pretty story,

but unless he's setting that poor woman up

to take some grand new fall,

the folksy goatherd warming toes

in bed with her is no more Zeus

than Hayley Mills is Lenny Bruce.

when Zeus melts into view

beneath the olive trees.

A snow-white ewe

follows him coltishly.
“It's Io!” he fumes, sitting.

“Hera invited her to test

my sexual sobriety.

The height of irony!

She'll stoop to anything!
Miriam tips the pitcher

to the mixing bowl

and watches him add claret

from the grapevines

pruned to basket shapes

along the facing hillside.

she barely speaks.

into their cups

and the observant bay

flames reddish gold.

of growing old tonight,”

she says.
“He does,” Zeus says.
The white ewe comes

to nuzzle both their ankles.

he says, “this house

was rumored to be haunted,

and the cats—

where are they all today?—

to be reincarnations

of the virgins I deflowered.

Rubbish!

of Amazons who founded

Ephesus but couldn't bear

either to lose this scape

or live among the males

who overtook their district.

Helios is the only caress

they crave, old as he is.

Look, she wants us both

to pet her!

She'd lie down

with squid if Hera let her!

A skinner in town

could find some way

to settle her libido down.”

Zeus says, and roars.

He drinks; lifts up the bowl

again; and pours.

A cursed race of Muslims have overrun Christians in seven battles as far west as the Hellespont, and slay them by sword and fire!

They circumcise them and pour their blood on altars or into baptismal fonts!

Perforate their navels! Pull forth the intestine! Bind it to a stake! Then flog the victim around and around until the viscera have all gushed forth!

Cut open the callouses on pilgrims' heels and fold the skin back, lest money is sewn there!

Make them drink scammony until their bowels burst, lest they have swallowed gold!

Spread out the folds of the intestine, to disclose whatever nature held there in secret!

Unless you avenge these wrongs, great Franks—whom God gave courage, bodily activity, and strength to humble the hairy scalps of all who resist you—disgrace!

Shall a base race claim the ground where the Savior's blood gushed forth and the tomb where His body, its quivering members dead, found rest?

Don't be stayed by love of children, parents and wives!

Christ says, “He that loveth family more than me is unworthy.”

Nor let possessions detain you, your land shut in on all sides by seas and mountains furnishes scarcely food enough!

Instead, take the road to the Holy Sepulchre—wrest that land of milk and honey from a wicked race and take it for yourselves!

Christus volt! Christ commands it!

And a regiment of great renown

Our name's on the pages of history

From '66 on down

Who lead us into the fight

We'll do or die in our country's cause

And battle for the right

It matters not where we're goin'

Such you'll surely say as we march away

And our band plays 'Garryowen'

little bits of what I know

about a woman

when she loves a man

of literary history,

whose business is that

but my own?

get a life! A lot of people

do worse things

than stand in line

because they want to write.
Sure, I could be like Christ

and feed the poor instead,

but why attempt to stand

the natural order on its head?

hunger would be always with us,

so then, why not share a tip

along the way on how to get

a Catholic girl to kiss us?
Why criticize entertainment,

given how fond your precious bodhisattvas are

offends you,

hitch up your pangs and leave.
Not only

is the soup line over there,

smuggled out

of Shangri-La itself
I hear
are buried

in the mini-cemetery

of James Hilton's underwear.

Attachment - Muse's Advisory, Nov. 29 - Zeus to Miriam:
Truth is,

I'm not crazy about mountain-tops.

I wandered in disguise

along the wharves of the Aegean ports,

alongside rivers, lakes—

I like a water view.

The day I first laid eyes on you
I had gone hiking from the Carmel

up the Kishon river through Besara,

poked my head into the basalt caves

where an acquaintance or two lived,

one of those voices in my head

urged me to walk that way.
What drew me to one particular girl

I glimpsed in a sunny window

with her book?
Oddly, it was the book.

I was seized by a powerful curiosity

about what had set that particular look

on your face.

I was supposed to be

omnipotent.

As Io Bled - Muse's Advisory, Nov. 30 - Clio:
“What did I see

in you?” Miriam exclaims.

“Chutzpah, for one thing.

You walked right in

like it was where you lived

and were about to call

then looked at me

as if I were the most exotic

human being you had ever seen,

scorching my face

with your black eyes

like Nabateans scorch the hillocks

to smoke hyrax out.”

nor hands?” Zeus says.

“Poets will write

it was my beard and hands,

and that I smelled

more sweetly

than the average man.”
“Your beard,” she laughs,

“makes you resemble

nothing more than one

of Homer's bumpkins,

and your hands look

like you've grappled

one too many sheep!

You do have a

distinctive smell,

but only swineherds

would consider it a treat.”
“Io—“
“That cow would call

a saw-scaled viper sweet

if she thought

it would get her served

in her unpausing

oestral heat.”

and my form's been sculpted

into comely statues

fairly frequently—

perhaps for cause?”
“Don't fish

for compliments from me!

The whole world knows it was

the torso of Alcamenes

that Phidias spread olive oil on,

and then the face of Ageladas—

they were the models for

your chryselephantine colossus

and every sculptor since

has only copied that!

If you looked half as good

as half your statues look,

you wouldn't need

the silken mind and steely tongue

that are your trademark hooks.”
“You're all a god could want,

dear Miriam—

to be known well,

and leveled with.

You've no idea how much

demeaned I've felt

these past 19 or 20 centuries

bombarded constantly with antiphons

as if I were a monolith.”
“It's worse for me,” she says.

“My cult believes I care

about each member, individually.

The Ave Maria's are easy

but every Mother Mary, come to me

after heart-wrenching litanies

of sins and sorrows

mars my sleep.

What has become

of common courtesy?”

spilled onto the bay below.

Behind them climbed a moon

pale as the face of Io

above the red flood

of the abattoir,

another ewer of bright wine

and warmly reminisced.

Prospects - Muse's Advisory, Dec. 1 - Melpomene:

“Once you've relaxed

They spot John,

“Six hundred years,” Zeus says,

with his fish-smelling sack,

in front and the boot

in back;
one scroll unfurled

inside his head,

strung olive stones

from the grove Gethsemane,
I on the isle of Patmos

heard a trumpet unto Ephesus

and unto Smyrna

and unto Pergamos

and unto Thyatira

and unto Sardis

and unto Philadelphia

and unto Laodicea.

In front of him wafts

Miriam's pale face,
eyes like flame

searched reins and hearts

and his feet like brass

tred pavingstones

and stumblingblocks!

the last is greater

than the first

until the vessels

of the potter break

to shivers like

the evening star!
He tries to smile

but finds a smile already

seated on his lips.
Her spirit reaches out a hand

to quiet him.

ascending the hill with his sack.

Flies buzz around his head

and straggle in his hair;

four swifts do acrobatics in the sky.

The first beast is a lion!

The second a calf, the third a man!

The last an eagle with inward eyes!

Sun flares. His dry lips crack.

A wary yeoman and bone-thin ox

pass on the narrow track.

barb poised and claws spread wide.

John stoops and cups his palm,

raises the scorpion to

striking distance of his eyes

and prays, Lord, here am I!

It arches its six-striped back,

it stretches forth its mighty tail

and took its barb to strike

but hesitates, is stayed.

Not my will be done but thine.

I hear thy voice and I obey.
He looses the mouth of his sack

and drops the scorpion in. Amen.

Fetus - Muse's Advisory, Dec. 4 – Polimnia:
John can no more stop than a torrent rushing down a gully after a cloudbreak
stars fall like a fig tree casting untimely figs in a mighty wind

and the heavens depart like a scroll when it is rolled back up

and each mountain and island rooted up from its foundations
blue sky and white sun concealments and illusions, flies and birds the evil one's diversions
who shall hunger no more

for the lamb shall wipe all the tears from the glass of their eyes
behind the veil of his own face, deafening thunder like the roars of behemoth
and the earth is shaken and rocks broken open

and vaults cloven and bodies of the saints

who were asleep arise and come out of the tomb
he stumbles in his delirium
the cord binding his sack breaking open and the foul octopus inside

sliding out onto the path like Belial's stillborn fetus

and continues up the hill to greet Miriam

down the hill

as cedars of Lebanon

like the thief's who asked Yeshua

to remember him
John praises god
the goat bleats

with the voice of Gabriel

from underneath his coat

a waterskin

and offers John to drink

John says

the yeoman says

puts back the waterskin

for Miriam

To unlock the bottomless Pit

That breathes forth Smoke

Of locusts and of Scorpions

All ordained to punish Men

With no seal on their Brows

Who pray in vain for Death

On insects raimented for War

Their faces as the face of Men

Their teeth the teeth of Lions

Their breastplates made of Iron

And the sounding of their Wings

Like horses coursing into Battle

In the name of the locusts' King

In the Hebrew tongue Abaddon

In the Greek tongue Apollyon

In the Latin tongue Exterminans

And the scorpion's Epithet

Is the slayer of Lapwings!

Curse ye,

Orders of twin winged Demons!

Curse ye,

Twice false Olympic Gods!

Ye have taken from me Yeshua

My Lord.

Purification - Muse's Advisory, Dec. 7 – Urania:
An ivory angel

clothed in cloud appears

in its mouth

it says.
John sees the olive trees,

the cats assembling,
the roundstone hut

where Miriam is.

to nourish her

on Golgotha.

Zeus

when the angel spoke, saying,

sit and drink, first water

and then wine.”
John seats himself

and next to him is seated Yeshua

arisen.
She cried travailing in birth,

Yeshua says,

“spoke to me along the road.

He has blasphemed Yeshua.”
“No beast, John.

It was Zeus, Yeshua's father.”

and passes him cool water from the spring,

the sound of her voice like unto the voice of the cistern.
Though she be my mother,

she heareth me not, says Yeshua.
“Lord, give me words,” John says.
“Your words, John, always comfort me,”

says Miriam. “Your voice reminds me

of Yeshua's voice in childhood,

which delights me.”

down on the cats that paw the sack of fish.

“I bring you squid and octopus,” he says,

“forbidden to the Jews, but your son places

on our plate all that His Father hath provided

for our sustinence.”

John says, “seeks only to corrupt you.”