Elegy for the Deathless Gods

      Daybreak, church bells, a footpath up the citadel 

to the refit columns of

                                 (a Cubist dome): Athena’s home:

 

                       the parthenon

      Silence

through the looted temple Lord Elgin left behind 

intermingled with shadows (the night-

                                                         shade of oblivion)

on the trespassed stones, their copper color 

diluted by the tin of sun,

                                     as they wandered from one

colonnade to another.

      Or perhaps, in truth, those were the gods, having found, 

at last, an eternity

                           in the ghosted spaces

between Harmony and Chaos, Mythology and Things-

As-They-Are.

 

      More’s the harm.

 

      Once the universe turned its back on them, 

their auric idols

                     were melted down and welded 

onto metalwork to coronate a king, settle scores, 

and forge a tomb out of Elysium.

                                                   No more the air-

borne omens; no more the incensed prayers;

no more the carcass

                            butchered at the altar.

                                  

      

      Do what time anyway will,

on the hotel shuttle into town, if the driver had asked me 

what the sightseer saw,

                              I would’ve answered,

and for the moment believed it true, In the morning,