Pagan's Soliloquy

1. Revulsion

I'd turned my back on that day's crucifixions.
The Gods know I've seen enough suffering
Since the Romans commenced their bloody rule.
That day, as the three wooden masts of pain
Anoited the Hillside of the Skull
With their gaunt, black shadows of suffering,
I made my way instead to the sea.

Angry winds had stirred the sea into a tempest.
Waves raced toward the shore like vicious dogs
Baring their whitecapped teeth in fury as they
Leapt up to try to rip into the jagged breakwater.
Retreating, snarling, battered to a bloody brown
With their cargo of loosened red clay,
It seemed as if the sea had become a chalice
That had caught the blood that had been shed
For man, by that strange, insane Jew
Dying in the company of thieves.

I wished for a moment to shatter as a wave,
To dash my doubts against a sea wall of certainty,
Splattering into spindrift the fatty complacency
Of a diet of intellectual sweetmeats.
Leaving them to taint the turbulent water
Rather than having them festering inside me,
Infecting my spirit with cynicism.

2. The Vision

My meandering musings were slain by a shout.
The waves were leaping skyward, dancing
In a wild tempestuous ecstasy.
Tiaras of foam were burnishing their crests.
The dazzling display of light that blinded me
Was as overpowering as the fragrance of roses
That seemed to waft from the sea to my senses.

Rising from an ocean that had suddenly come calm
Was an iridescent scallop shell
Bathed in crimson light.
Burning, passionate red crimson!

Standing on the shell that rose from the water
Was a voluptuous vision of womanly perfection.
Looking glass liquid droplets still clung to her,
Shimmering like tiny lights of illumination.
It was Aphrodite!

She smiled a wan, sad smile.
It was an expression of bitter knowledge;
Of remembrance, of love, of Ares, of Adonis.
It was the knowledge of her impending death;
Telling me that Gods as well as men are mortal.
She slowly slid beneath the waves.
Before I could utter a protest, she was gone;
Disappearing behind a blinding cascade of spray.

3. Revelation

You want despair?  I'll now give you despair.
There was a time when all the trees had names;
Baucis and Philomon were linden and oak.
One could watch Naiads leaping from the rapids
As their river tumbled joyfully over the rocks
On its plunging journey toward the sea.
Dryads floated through the forest's dewy mists.
Even crags and rocks were imbued with spirits.
No more can I hear the faint trills of Pan's flute,
Nature seems bereft of its beauty; soulless, dead.
Little did I know that day that the death
Of that odd man-God would mean the end of mine.
That the gentle deities who shared my world with me
Would be banished by this dark creed of cruelty,
This strange religion of suffering, denial and death.

Pygmalion Revisited

Mikos last saw him embracing Galatea,
A statue brought to life, Aphrodite's answer
To prayers that begged for the stone maiden's love.
Mikos visited them again though, last winter.
Galatea's gotten fat.  She's now a slattern with jowls.
Her breasts are sagging like a thatched roof
In need of repair.  She's got a termagent's tongue
And a temper volatile as an enraged Achilles.
Their six children have the manners and shrill voices
Of a flock of gulls quarrelling over a dead fish.

Cowed, Pygmalion flees to his workshop refuge
And bars the door.  His desperation is tying
His deliverance to yet another creation.
With a fervency he felt only once before,
He beseeches a miracle from Phyxios, the God
Of miraculous escapes as he labors
To shape a lifelike image of winged Pegasus.
With haste he chisels at the sullen, stubborn stone.
Sweat runs down his tired, ruddy face, and his hair,
Thin and hoary, is mottled with flecks of marble.

For Love Of Aphrodite

Keen-eyed Mikos saw through his mortal guise.
The God was tending a forge in Acardy.
He'd worked a sword into a spade
And a shield into an infant's bathtub
Before his eyes clouded too full of tears
For him to work further.  Sighing like a bellows,
He surrendered to his misery, sat down,
And daubed at his eyes with thick sweaty fingers.

Disconcerting are a God's tears to men.
We view them as beings beyond our pain.
Mikos turned to flee, lest like Actaeon
He'd be punished for viewing the forbidden.
If it was death to watch a Goddess bathe
A God's anguish could augur an awful fate.
Hephaestus looked up and banished his fear
By beckoning him to come sit beside him.

"Ares is with her again," he explained,
His voice quivering with the indignation
And despair of a husband betrayed.
"My thoughts wander in a labyrinth of loneliness
Wherein all the corridors of desire and need
Lead only to her.  But she laughs at my love.
She seeks pleasure instead in the brutal passion
And battle-scarred visage of the God of War."

"Why do you remain with her?" Mikos wondered,
Emboldened by the God's confession.  "If my woman
Left my bed for another's embrace, I'd never take her back."
"My pride tells me I should leave her," the God admitted,
"But to rage at her infidelities
Would cut me off from that radiant beauty
Whom being close to is like basking in Spring warmth
After a lengthy, fog-laden winter of chill.

Her skin is as soft as a good-night caress,
Her lustrous hair as sweet-scented as hyacinth.
Her moist red lips glisten like rose petals
That just beg to be plucked with one's tongue.
Her nearness thickens my brain as fine wine does,
My legs become unsteady, my voice falters,
And my feelings entwine in exaltation and fear
As a warrior's thoughts do before battle.

Now I've got to get back to my work," he sighed.
"I'm going to shape her a delicate brooch
Of sapphire set in silver filagree,
Wrought to portray spindrift and sea-spray
Leaping up from the blue as it collides with the rocks
To snatch at the gold of the sun.  Imagine
The delight in her eyes when I present it to her.
How her smile will light up the room!"