Pandora’s Box

(“Pandora’s Box”, 2014, original pen and ink and oil) Pandora’s Box I don’t know who she was, What she did or how she did it, And maybe it was something sublime Or maybe she was just another woman With the kind of perfect snatch To launch a thousand ships In a sea of broken hearts, But Pandora certainly left her mark Even today, a stain across the whole Of Western syphilization All of us now born infected with the miasm Of her STD at our culture’s core. And so it flows, A not so subtle ooze of infection Tainting hearts and minds Of old and young alike, Making the age of innocence An ever more fleeting thing Making daydreams into nightmares Corrupting youth on the backs Of sagging decrepit elders. Ah, there was a time When the light shone bright and clear And children laughed Without a care And then Father Time had his way With Mother Earth And the world turned Into one long tawdry soap opera, With coked up stars Too self-obsessed to even know Let alone care To what degree the schlock they sold Was even worth the dime they’d just inhaled. Lost like this, removed from their roots The players played At the same old game With the same old lines Recalling Pandora only in their deepest dreams When within the stench The faint fresh breath of morning dew Touched their roses fair And in that moment glimpsed, The pure soft light Before the dawn did shine On Pandora, demure and sweet, Before her box Was ever known To any but her own. And so it goes The mind enthralled by all that can And could ever be, Returned to the source To sit and smile With Pandora before she knew the name Let alone even what she possessed And all that it would unfold, Back before she was a she When simply Pan was all we had To love and live, in dance and play And only knew what it was being free. (7/18/25)