In the agora or out on the street
Wherever public figures I did meet
In conversation I loved to engage
Only to find my questions would enrage
I chipped and chipped at their exterior
Their words hollow with no interior
My young disciples would heartily laugh
At my victims' unease and ev'ry gaffe
My deft manner of the question quizzical
Drove them to plot a bitter reprisal
My daemon urged me to expose deceit
My mission became to puncture conceit
Fake news my furious foes spread about
And brought me to court my campaign to rout
Charged with corrupting Athenian youth
In defence I spoke nothing but the truth
They turned a deaf ear and they paid no heed
So inflamed were they by this irksome deed
The verdict of guilty came as no shock
My sentence-to die by drinking hemlock
They hoped I would flee this condemnation
I chose to keep the laws of my nation
To the shame of Athens, I preferred death
Affirming my content with my last breath
In my drinking of the draught down, they saw
How much I honoured the virtue of law.
They amaze me with their Athena thoughts -
full-grown at birth -
while I sit silently, my stereoscopic vision flat.
As they speak, hypnotic images emerge with a three-dimensional power.
I'm overwhelmed.
Then suddenly, a bright jewel shines in my eyes.
A thought is beating in my blood.
I try to grasp it,
but each facet of the small crystal is a singular knife that slices my tongue.
My delivery fails
and I gaze on the backs of Athenian armor.
The Real Pheidippides
Athenian messenger Pheidippides
Died 30 years before the birth of Thucydides
Most famous hemerodrome day-runner
Ran a 300-mile ultramarathon stunner
August in Athens is always confusing
I spent the evening looking at a white wall the moon had lit up,
waiting for the movie to start.
Staggered into a church where bearded priests handed out bags
of yesterday’s cake.
The elderly lady behind me got none, it was her second time
she had been in the line
I gave her my bag and felt good about my act of charity.
In the deep shadows of the park, I found a grotto displaying
Jesus in he looked like a sleeping angel, one painted by Caravaggio.
The painted Jesus opened his eyes smiled like an urchin selling himself to a paederast.
Behind two nuns giggled and I fled this religious horror.
Came to a lone bar run by a horse that had fled a Russian circus.
As Alice Walker said,” horses make the landscape more beautiful.”
I drank ouzo, she had hay.
At midnight we rode through the summer night.
Aphorisms or EPIGRAMS on God and Human FREEDOM (?)
1. God is hiding in plain sight: God is the background, the very canvas, without which the foreground, the ART, cannot be!
The renowned Missionary-Apostle, Paul, told the Athenian philosophers, even your poets say that "in Him we live and move and have our being." The reference is BOOK of ACTS 17:28. The intelligentsia of Greece had erected statues to their many gods, goddesses, and one "To the Unknown God," to cover their bases. Paul told them the UNKNOWN GOD to you, is well known to us!
2. Why can't you see your own eyes, or hear your own ears, or beat your own heart? Why can't we return the living breath in a person that dies? Who gave the newborn its first breath?
The one or FORCE that gives newborn babies their very first breath of life ... who or what is IT? Why can't we get the same FORCE to restore the breath in a dying or dead person? So, we are not independent after all, even to the point of not controlling our heart beats, or managing the function of internal organs!
my Goddess entwines
love and the kind
of encouragement
worthy of Thor
on a pedestal of pure
Athenian marble
she inscribes
my tablet
chipping away
a bit everyday
the imperfections
are revealed with time
molding this rock
as malleable clay
with the hands of a sculptor
divine
and with the patience of Job
in negligee
she polishes blemish
away
earth and life are symbiotic
poisoning one destroys two
believing not betrays
the host that takes an oath
said
to have
a face of true
beauty so beautiful
too beautiful deserving
an Athenian beauty salon
curse
hours under
the sculpting
stylist's stolen eye
honey when i'm done
with you you'll rock their
socks off
so sitting back
closing her beautiful
eye lids of her beautiful
face she dreamed about how
the record holder for launching a
thousand ships
she'd do one better
so imagine how upset
her waking was when after
hours of snipping here and there
her stylist pronounced ta da my dear
taking
a look in
a mirror and
noticing she had
the same alabaster
facial skin of perfection
but
some
thing was
different she
couldn't quite put
a pin point on what
"the saga continues" part 2
always seemed to be
waking this time in an
acoustic cave dwelling
where hissing sounds
pingponged off the walls
time for another
hissy fit
from her another
day of waking
having a bad
hair
day
IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY - LXXIII
IF ever I had a country re-made by the Revolutionary
And if ever I were that Corsican Napoleon who appropriated the Apollonian sanctuary " gymnase " and the " lycée "
I'd let no fifteen-to-eighteen year old lycéen or lycéenne barricade the portals of their holier than holy Athenian lycée to camp on rubbish bins en grasse matinée
Luscious objects of voyeurism for the highly titillated TV-public and the uniformed police and grande armée
But, believe me, I'd stuff these nubile kids in the plastic garbage cans and seal them all air-tight with searing burners, yes, Sirée
And then let their cohorts yellow-jacket teachers all products of the Sexual Revolution generation torch the bins and choke in the resulting chemical fumée
Yes, Sirée, that's what the present Philosopher-King ought to do before he too joins or already joined the ranks of the revolutionary sexually-emancipated lycée
And even if I never ever were tutored in no lycée blessed by Apollo of Lykeios in gaie migrant-purée Paris
© T. Wignesan - Paris, December 8, 2018
In the agora or out on the street
Wherever public figures he did meet
In conversation he loved to engage
Only to find his questions would enrage
He chipped and chipped at their exterior
Their words hollow with no interior
His young disciples would heartily laugh
At his victims' unease and ev'ry gaffe
Good Socrates'deft manner quizzical
Drove them to plot a bitter reprisal
His daemon urged him to expose deceit
His mission became to puncture conceit
Fake news his furious foes spread about
And brought him to court his campaign to rout
Charged with corrupting Athenian youth
In defence he spoke nothing but the truth
They turned a deaf ear and they paid no heed
So inflamed were they by this irksome deed
The verdict of guilty came as no shock
His sentence-to die by drinking hemlock
They hoped he would flee his condemnation
He chose to keep the laws of his nation
To the shame of Athens, he preferred death
Affirming his content with his last breath
In his drinking of the draught down ,they saw
How much he honoured the virtue of law.
Through this sacrifice his soul did strive
That in public the truth would survive
"I am not an Athenian or a Greek,
but a citizen of the world" - Socrates.
Irish and Scottish instrumental music
is one of my favorite.
I have a weakness for oriental cuisines.
I am a fan of Greek and Hindu mythologies.
Most of my neighbors are Arabic.
The library I attend belongs to a Native American.
I am an African who speaks English language.
Different cultures and races color my life!
I am a citizen of the world.
Nymphius sits by the shores of the Aegean Sea,
waiting for her lover to return home. This is not
the first time she has done so.....
She always sits on the white, rough sands everyday,
carrying a basket of the best Athenian grapes,
which she and her husband always enjoy
at the dinner table and during pleasure.
Aphrodite always whispers to her heart,
assuring her that her husband is doing well,
liberating Cyprus from Barbarians.
His soft kisses, touch, and sensual whispers
in her ears she misses, as she tightly clenches
to her dress......
The fingers of the sun touched my bed
Breezes from the songs of little birds
I fought like a Spartan my eyes are red
Read like Athenian for my future bread
Plato's Retreat
I want to be just like Socrates,
Grow a long beard and do as I please.
And be asking you allot of questions . . . .
For a Living.
I want to be just like Socrates
And not know for sure
If I'm real merely some altar in Plato's temple.
I want to be just like Socrates
And stand in the forum all day.
In the blazing sun that surround us all
Under the the azure Athenian skies
And philosophize to anyone who bothers to listen . . .
For a Living.
I want to be just like Socrates
Corrupting my youth with a hemlock cocktail
Every Friday night;
2, 4 1 before 7.
I want to be just like Socrates on a Saturday night
Asking you, at the bar:
"What is Justice?"
And where can I score some tonight?
After hours,
Long after the widening sliver of
your mind's eternal dawning.
THE FALL OF ATHENS
Let all the wrath, unmercifully divine,
we have to muster, lead us in our quest,
and bring Athenian rule to be in line,
as sure the gods provide they fail the test,
all in our time, for Lacedaemon rules,
have we not made of man the equal to
the sight of death, upon the plights of fools
resisting all the means that we can do?
Their setting sun has risen in the east,
before the dark, those left will have to burn,
their knowledge is their fat, and only feast,
for all they know, they've yet to ever learn!
Now let the blood to flow down from the hill,
as if the flood has come and made the kill.
© ron wilson
The very word "anthology" means
"flower-gathering", or "I gather flowers"
rooted in ancient Greek, to describe
the act of collecting
Perhaps on some rocky Athenian hillside,
a maiden and too perhaps,
a young strapping man
walk tentatively,
amidst the rocky slides
of life and lust,
to gaze at the beauty
of shining black hair, flowing robe
over curved bosom, and beautiful feet,
too sinewy biceps, strong torso
and voice, behind alluring smile
They regard each other,
as desirous lovers always do,
with wanton coyness
and amorous trepidation
pausing, from time-to-time
perhaps to bend and pick some
wild flower that bloomed on
antiquities hillside
He would hand it to her
and she would, take it in
for a few moments, then
warmly look at him and
carefully find the perfect
place in her expanding
bouquet of colorful hope
that she held for him and her,
while perhaps,
the sun slowed it's
interminable baking
of the earth, and grapes
and wood smoke
added ambiance to
the possibilities
of an evening together
collecting a life
one bite, a touch,
a gaze, a scent,
a whispered adoration -
one feeling at a time
© Goode Guy 2012-04-26
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