Hallway to Nowhere

Category: Greek Philosophy

  • Same Game, Different Day (Poem)

    and so we wait in different ways

    discuss-or not-the end of days

    this approaching event

    we forget that we’ve been here before

    the die gets cast again and again

    a golden apple caused a war

    destroyed a city and founded an empire

    all for vanity’s sake

    death and the destroyer of worlds

    brought horrors beyond imagine

    killed people both quickly and slowly

    again because of wounded pride

    the mad, the bad, and the angry

    are still riding the storms of fear

    from which they feed and draw their strength

    one day, some day, we’ll stop and say

    let us not be afraid any more.

  • Electra’s Love (Poem)

    driven to the refuge of shadows

    so not to become her mother’s sacrificial prey

    another child offered to uncaring gods

    by a parent bent on insane pursuit of their own goals

    she watched as her mother danced about with gibbering glee

    and even as she shouted in her madness

    words that jangled with sharp strident barbs

    and waved her anger hotter than any blazing branch

    Electra loved her, even as she wept in fear

  • Klytemnestra In Old Age (Poem)

    her features sharpened to a knife’s edge

    her voice given over to vinegar’s bite

    her gaze still meets like the first freeze of autumn

    she has no more reasons for softness’ pretense

    the falseness of honeyed concern

    once again she is free from usual constraint

    keep close watch and take heed

    else she might burn the house down around her

    again, and as before laugh at the devastation

    do you care if your children scream in the flames

  • Remedy For Orpheus (Poem)

    they never told me when you died

    the day the place unknown to me

    they never told me where you lay

    the rite itself I heard described

    because I do not know these things

    you have wandered with me through the years

    not a ghost nor a revenant

    no returner from death’s realm

    simply as you were, mortal just as I

    growing old by my side

  • Ariadne, Mistress of The Labyrinth (Poem)

    I am no maiden

    to be approached with shining countenance

    or offers of love and wealth

    I will laugh and show you my empty hands

    only the foolish think that another can give them

    a charmed red thread to lead them to safety

    I know the secret of the labyrinth-

    have always known- and will freely share:

    no key, no secret, no hidden escape

    we each stand in the center of a self-created maze

    you alone know your way through the twists of your heart

    go and walk

  • Taking Temporary Refuge in Sextus Empiricus (Poem)

    Wearied by these discussions of things I cannot affect

    Storms darken the skies over mountains coasts plains deserts

    Bombs fall upon the helpless here and here and here

    Parties await the change of the year in metropolei cities towns villages

    Babies get born die people get sick die some recover all eventually die

    All sometimes just too much and I want to say stop of course nothing stops

    My primeval self-concept urges flight back to measured tranquility

    Suspension of belief wants immersion again in Skeptical therapeutics

    Indeed this provides a temporary respite but only that

    Now a different path engages me

    With this world other worlds the endless arguments that give them form.