To Dimitris Vogdanis "One seer to another"

A desert place, littered with fallen masonry and dismembered statues,

all very much in the style of Giorgio Chirico .

Enter KALKAS, the once great and now dishonoured prophet/priest.

He wears a scarlet robe, somewhat tattered and trailing far behind him.

He also wears a crown of sculls and leans on a tall rod surmounted by the

embossed head of an eagle.  Strange birds hover shrieking in the sky.

KALKAS, raising his hand in a great and significant gesture,  silences them.

KALKAS speaks: (Invocation)

"Advantages toward otherwise!

And so the ultimate of denied perception arrives surreptitiously

Astounds beyond astonishing."

Dare one accept the infallibility of one's own misfortune?

Perhaps

Perhaps

But even then the angel of the angel poise

Reveals

Other to other

The similar

To the same.

Ultimately one's own perception of signs and wonders in an aching sky

Will countermand with dire efficiency the dream-like asteroids of unencumbered space.

Believing or believing not

These in their angelic similarity

Create themselves the possibilities of continuance.

Uttering the unutterable

The gargoyle of the coping-stone murmurs

Re-echoing

The brutal muttering of us all.

And I

And I

Nattering among cobnuts

Am I not worthy of my place among -- ?

For it was

I

Who pretending

Only pretending

Became the mouthpiece

The shattering

Stammering

Rock-rasping

Voice of Destiny…

For once the force of history was with me.

Was I likely to forget that?

Never, ever.

No.

The gargoyle grinned at me

I seized my moment with the blade of my sacred dagger

The slaughterer of the innocent demanded by by myself and

Artemis  - 

The goddess who never knows quite what it is that she demands  -

So if Ifigenia died.

Forget that caustic rubbish about the child being snatched suddenly from Aulis to Tauris

There to become the witless priestess of some frozen and barbaric cult.

She died at my hand and the hawks had her. Or were they vultures?

Anyway, she died:

Becoming carrion in her death.

At which immediately the lost wind  rose

And ship upon majestic ship set sail for Troy.

Where a thousand heroes and a thousand kings

Gasping in armour fucked themselves to death.

So that from a useless blaze

A useless rose might be reborn  -

Helen,

The worlds desire

The errant wife of thundering  Menelaus.

And then and then the tragedy of Tantalus,

To the death and dire destruction by those wandering shades

Screeching through the House of Atreus.

That place of bloodstained honour.

The gargoyle cackles and the small south wind laughing

Ravishes all opponents with it's blasting breath  -

Not me, however.

I am past such guntch collaterals.

The five-fingered widow is my true companion now.

(Less costly too and more efficient in the end.)

Now must my cries of desiccated passion

Kindle the jackals of this illuminating place.

All satiation bringing it's own side-effect.

The goddess Artemis  -

Satiated

Let the fleet all commandeered, go free at last.

O, yes I am the true hero of my time.

My word utterly destroyed a world.

My word alone could make  -

A measured strife between great soldiers.

Death and Derision in equal parts clung to my fingertips.

I became because I made myself the mouthpiece of the gods.

And my reward?

Silence

Stillness

Solitude.

I offer oracles of the flesh of sacrifice

Bubbling with the furious prophecies of gargoyles.

Who believe themselves to have become gods  -

I t makes no difference anyway.

No one accepts them

No one believed them

All they want are tales of Troy  -

Of heroes and of anti-heroes:

Of death and glory:

And the vanquishing in the love of boys and women.

These things are beneath me now

But in telling I gained some sort of admiration and respect.

More does not interest me  -

Less means at best no dinner.

So I am become a professional liar.

But who notices?

Who cares?

Who cares, who notices?

No one.

No one noticed that Ifigenia died because that useless father of hers,

That triumphant dumbbell Agamemnon had previously violated the Sanctuary of the Goddess.

And in her sacred wood had slain the deer.

Now I've told you.

Now you will recognize how the vengeance of goddesses may well be wreaked!

So I fulfilled mine own prophecy.

And nobody notices and nobody cares.

Troy has come and gone.

Agamemnon is drastically dead.

Does anybody care?

Find me someone who does,

And I will fetch you something like your heart's desire. But you never will.

They would all rather listen to, ingest, lies  -

Rather than truth.

O, yes indeed.

Truth is very old fashioned, unpopular, out of flavour.

A fart in the bath is more in their line.

Lies are the things everyone wants.

Demands.

Especially from the worship of gods.

Or even the speeches of constipated politicians.

CONTINUE
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