Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Oracle

 I found a long lost poem; one I wrote at age... 21 or so.


And lest I lose it again (although I remember it when I sing):


ORACLE

ORACLOracle

I walked numb and drunk
to the oracle at Delphi
that I might inhale Pythia's smoke
and gaze into tomorrow

I met a priest
who drank the wine of wisdom
he told me to go home
but instead I stole his cup

and the gods have grown 
bored with my possibilities
I can tell by the way my prayers are left
bleeding in the dust

over the entrance to the temple
an inscription reads
                      Know Thyself

I know my gods
I can smell them on my hands
I kneel at an altar made of rain

but i want to be Athena
babies in my oceanic belly
gods of war sucking at my breast

Oh, Oracle, do not leave me
alone with the vanishing smoke
ask of me something I can give

but the Oracle does not ask
it tells
and in this darkness where I stumble
I discover

I do not know the question I want to ask

THE USUAL (An abstract sound meets iambic pentameter work)

  The Usual The stink. The plink and clink, so rinky-dink, Our winkless cries went down the kitch’n sink. Oh, strum und drang. D’you k...