Best Silenus Poems
If my poetry moves you to witness to stranger
Just know that I'm touched that you're "sharing my ride,"
For the fact is that giving can be fraught with danger,
But those that it calls feel much warmer inside!
I have so little knowledge to call my invention
Some came from my parents, from people I've met
But the gift of the spirit defies all convention
It's holy, profound, precious gift without debt.
Even muse I call gift, for it waters my soul's growth,
An alternate path that the spirit can take
Truth that's flavored by strangers, by loved ones, I've seen both,
Fresh air never sweeter, Grace purges mistake!
Spirit truth has no owner like jewel or gold dust,
It's one with Creation; you'll know it by feel.
Although Midas (1) got gold, all his love turned to soul rust,
The gift of the Spirit is simply to heal!
Brian Johnston
June 13, 2017
Poet's Notes:
(1) From Greek mythology - Wikipedia
"One day, as Ovid relates in Metamorphoses, Dionysus found that his old schoolmaster and foster father, the satyr Silenus, was missing. The old satyr had been drinking wine and wandered away drunk, to be found by some Phrygian peasants who carried him to their king, Midas (alternatively, Silenus passed out in Midas' rose garden). Midas recognized him and treated him hospitably, entertaining him for ten days and nights with politeness, while Silenus delighted Midas and his friends with stories and songs. On the eleventh day, he brought Silenus back to Dionysus in Lydia. Dionysus offered Midas his choice of whatever reward he wished. Midas asked that whatever he might touch should be changed into gold.
Midas rejoiced in his new power, which he hastened to put to the test. He touched an oak twig and also a stone; both turned to gold. Overjoyed, as soon as he got home, he touched every rose in the rose garden, and all became gold. He ordered the servants to set a feast on the table. Upon discovering how even the food and drink turned into gold in his hands, he regretted his wish and cursed it. Claudian states in his In Rufinem: "So Midas, king of Lydia, swelled at first with pride when he found he could transform everything he touched to gold; but when he beheld his food grow rigid, and his drink harden into golden ice then he understood that this gift was a bane and in his loathing for gold, cursed his prayer."
I have tasted my beloved poets’ Bray
In the three great books of our literature:
"The Book of Good Love," "La Celestina," and "Don Quixote"
As well as in García Lorca's The Ass
Who directed La Barraca
Also Rimbaud, Gide, Apollinaire, Verlaine
Poe, Shakespeare, Chaucer, etc.
Digesting their works
Belching their art and poetry
In gatherings, convents, or schools
In salons, platforms, and athenaeums
Announcing, yes, that these poets matter to me
Useful and appropriate in their verses
Leaving in their books clear evidence
Of their braying talent.
Let it be known and not forgotten
That braying was always their rule
And I venerate it as is right.
Isn't it good to give them what is theirs?
So I do and tell it
Washing my hands with my urine
To reach their Muse
Who had goosebumps
And they, the hide of a new Donkey.
All of them rode on Donkeys
Singing of the extreme love
Of the Donkey for her crop
Or recounting amazing adventures
Of an animal's shin
Of a priest with a friar or a nun.
Or the Song of Songs
Inspired to Solomon by a Donkey
As mentioned in sacred scripture.
Oh, Poets, I praise you
For showing me the way
The true path that is Poetry
In the land of Life
As I venerate Abdon and his Donkeys
Apuleius turned into a Donkey
Jester and his praises of the Donkey
Photius, patriarch, who plagiarized a Donkey
Fond of verse
The Donkeys of Jair of Palestine
Lucian's Donkey
Machiavelli's Donkey
Midas with his Donkey ears
Priapus in his bet with the Donkey
To see which of the two had the better cock
Saint John of the Cross
Jumping over the walls of nunneries
Riding a Donkey
Whore, goddess of the bushes
Who swallowed more than a thousand cocks
Including that of the Donkeys
Silenus and his Donkey
Thartac, god of the Hivites
With a Donkey's head
The Donkey that figures in the Temples.
All peoples, Bray with me
Clap your hands
Because the Donkey is the sublime emperor
Of all the earth
And his braying will always dwell in our houses
Because being a Braying and a Donkey
Is strength.