246 Mythology poems

Raven steals your name for an autumn joke: buries you along with it under the thickest hemlock known to chipmunks. Too bad you were awake for the event. He accuses you of asking all the wrong questions over and over. You attempt revolt to prove his medicine wheel is cracked and filling up its own pit. He hollers your face is unmasked and madness has found a home. All stink and rotten fur, he says to you, claims you had a choice and forgot what it was. Now he says your pain must run for the river, the river for the wind. He chuckles and the dark chatters, turning you around until your shadow is the earth’s.

After Seferis Since we still had a little Of the rusk left, what fools To eat, against the rules, The Sun’s slow-moving cattle, Each ox huge as a tank — A wall you’d have to siege For forty years to reach A star, a hero’s rank. We starved on the back of the earth, But when we’d stuffed ourselves, We tumbled to these delves, Numbskulls, fed up with dearth.

Atlas, you’re Homer. I am so glad you’re Hera. Thera so many things to tell you. I went on that minotaur of the museum. The new display centaurs on how you can contract Sisyphus if you don’t use a Trojan on your Dictys. It was all Greek to me, see. When I was Roman around, I rubbed Midas against someone. “Medea, you look like a Goddess,” he said. The Minerva him! I told him to Frigg off, oracle the cops. “Loki here,” I said. “In Odin times men had better manners.” It’s best to try and nymph that sort of thing in the bud. He said he knew Athena two about women like me, then tried to Bacchus into a corner. Dryads I could, he wouldn’t stop. “Don’t Troy with my affections,” he said. “I’m already going to Helen a hand basket.” I pretended to be completely Apollo by his behavior. If something like that Mars your day, it Styx with you forever. “I’m not Bragi,” he said. “But Idon better.” Some people will never Lerna. Juno what I did? Valhalla for help. I knew the police would Pegasus to the wall. The Sirens went off. Are you or Argonaut guilty, they asked. He told the cops he was Iliad bad clams. He said he accidentally Electra Cupid himself trying to adjust a lamp shade. This job has its pluses and Minos. The cops figured he was Fulla it. He nearly Runic for me. I’m telling you, it was quite an Odyssey, but I knew things would Pan out. And oh, by the way, here’s all his gold. I was able to Fleece him before the museum closed.

For Angela The Windigo is a flesh-eating, wintry demon with a man buried deep inside of it. In some Chippewa stories, a young girl vanquishes this monster by forcing boiling lard down its throat, thereby releasing the human at the core of ice. You knew I was coming for you, little one, when the kettle jumped into the fire. Towels flapped on the hooks, and the dog crept off, groaning, to the deepest part of the woods. In the hackles of dry brush a thin laughter started up. Mother scolded the food warm and smooth in the pot and called you to eat. But I spoke in the cold trees: New one, I have come for you, child hide and lie still. The sumac pushed sour red cones through the air. Copper burned in the raw wood. You saw me drag toward you. Oh touch me, I murmured, and licked the soles of your feet. You dug your hands into my pale, melting fur. I stole you off, a huge thing in my bristling armor. Steam rolled from my wintry arms, each leaf shivered from the bushes we passed until they stood, naked, spread like the cleaned spines of fish. Then your warm hands hummed over and shoveled themselves full of the ice and the snow. I would darken and spill all night running, until at last morning broke the cold earth and I carried you home, a river shaking in the sun.

I He dines alone surrounded by reflections of himself. Then after sleep and benzedrine descends the Cinquecento stair his magic wrought from hypochondria of the well- to-do and nagging deathwish of the poor; swirls on smiling genuflections of his liveried chauffeur into a crested lilac limousine, the cynosure of mousey neighbors tittering behind Venetian blinds and half afraid of him and half admiring his outrageous flair. II Meanwhile his mother, priestess in gold lamé, precedes him to the quondam theater now Israel Temple of the Highest Alpha, where the bored, the sick, the alien, the tired await euphoria. With deadly vigor she prepares the way for mystery and lucre. Shouts in blues-contralto, ”He’s God’s dictaphone of all-redeeming truth. Oh he’s the holyweight champeen who’s come to give the knockout lick to your bad luck; say he’s the holyweight champeen who’s here to deal a knockout punch to your hard luck.“ III Reposing on cushions of black leopard skin, he telephones instructions for a long slow drive across the park that burgeons now with spring and sailors. Peers questingly into the green fountainous twilight, sighs and turns the gold-plate dial to Music For Your Dining-Dancing Pleasure. Smoking Egyptian cigarettes rehearses in his mind a new device that he must use tonight. IV Approaching Israel Temple, mask in place, he hears ragtime allegros of a ”Song of Zion“ that becomes when he appears a hallelujah wave for him to walk. His mother and a rainbow-surpliced cordon conduct him choiring to the altar-stage, and there he kneels and seems to pray before a lighted Jesus painted sealskin-brown. Then with a glittering flourish he arises, turns, gracefully extends his draperied arms: “Israelites, true Jews, O found lost tribe of Israel, receive my blessing now. Selah, selah.” He feels them yearn toward him as toward a lover, exults before the image of himself their trust gives back. Stands as though in meditation, letting their eyes caress his garments jewelled and chatoyant, cut to fall, to flow from his tall figure dramatically just so. Then all at once he sways, quivers, gesticulates as if to ward off blows or kisses, and when he speaks again he utters wildering vocables, hypnotic no-words planned (and never failing) to enmesh his flock in theopathic tension. Cries of eudaemonic pain attest his artistry. Behind the mask he smiles. And now in subtly altering light he chants and sinuously trembles, chants and trembles while convulsive energies of eager faith surcharge the theater with power of their own, a power he has counted on and for a space allows to carry him. Dishevelled antiphons proclaim the moment his followers all day have hungered for, but which is his alone. He signals: tambourines begin, frenetic drumbeat and glissando. He dances from the altar, robes hissing, flaring, shimmering; down aisles where mantled guardsmen intercept wild hands that arduously strain to clutch his vestments, he dances, dances, ensorcelled and aloof, the fervid juba of God as lover, healer, conjurer. And of himself as God.

You are food. You are here for me to eat. Fatten up, and I will like you better. Your brother will be first, you must wait your turn. Feed him yourself, you will learn to do it. You will take him eggs with yellow sauce, muffins torn apart and leaking butter, fried meats late in the morning, and always sweets in a sticky parade from the kitchen. His vigilance, an ice pick of   hunger pricking his insides, will melt in the unctuous cream fillings. He will forget. He will thank you for it. His little finger stuck every day through cracks in the bars will grow sleek and round, his hollow face swell like the moon. He will stop dreaming about fear in the woods without food. He will lean toward the maw of   the oven as it opens every afternoon, sighing better and better smells.

A witch can charm milk from an ax handle. A witch bewitches a man's shoe. A witch sleeps naked. "Witch ointment" on the back will allow you to fly through the air. A witch carries the four of clubs in her sleeve. A witch may be sickened at the scent of roasting meat. A witch will neither sink nor swim. When crushed, a witch's bones will make a fine glue. A witch will pretend not to be looking at ber own image in a window. A witch will gaze wistfully at the glitter of a clear night. A witch may take the form of a cat in order to sneak into a good man's chamber. A witch's breasts will be pointed rather than round, as discovered in the trials of the 1950s. A powerful witch may cause a storm at sea. With a glance, she will make rancid the fresh butter of her righteous neighbor. Even our fastest dogs cannot catch a witch-hare. A witch has been known to cry out while her husband places inside her the image of a child. A witch may be burned for tying knots in a marriage bed. A witch may produce no child for years at a time. A witch may speak a foreign language to no one in particular. She may appear to frown when she believes she is smiling. If her husband dies unexpectedly, she may refuse to marry his brother. A witch has been known to weep at the sight of her own child. She may appear to be acting in a silent film whose placards are missing In Hollywood the sky is made of tin. A witch makes her world of air, then fire, then the planets. Of cardboard, then ink, then a compass. A witch desires to walk rather than be carried or pushed in a cart. When walking a witch will turn suddenly and pretend to look at something very small. The happiness of an entire house maybe ruined by witch hair touching a metal cross. The devil does not speak to a witch. He only moves his tongue. An executioner may find the body of a witch insensitive to an iron spike. An unrepentant witch may be converted with a frttle lead in the eye. Enchanting witchpowder may be hidden in a girl's hair. When a witch is hungry, she can make a soup by stirring water with her hand. I have heard of a poor woman changing herself into a pigeon. At times a witch will seem to struggle against an unknown force stronger than herself. She will know things she has not seen with her eyes. She will have opinions about distant cities. A witch may cry out sharply at the sight of a known criminal dying of thirst. She finds it difficult to overcome the sadness of the last war. A nightmare is witchwork. The witch elm is sometimes referred to as "all heart." As in, "she was thrown into a common chest of witch elm." When a witch desires something that is not hers, she will slip it into her glove. An overwhelming power compels her to take something from a rich man's shelf. I have personally known a nervous young woman who often walked in her sleep. Isn't there something witchlike about a sleepwalker who wanders through the house with matches? The skin of a real witch makes a delicate binding for a book of common prayer. When all the witches in your town have been set on fire, their smoke will fill your mouth. It will teach you new words. It will tell you what you've done.

All this havoc just means I’m a poor wizard. Once, I lit three twigs and fanned the smoke, from miles away, into the girl who jumbled scales through my spine. As she vanished I clapped a delighted tune. But not without aches of my own. Did the sack of no echoes fail me? Now, on such a mild curse— boils, sewn eyes, a shrew in the loin my ankle reddens up and eyes me with disdain. Toenails fall off. How far will this go? Poor wizard. Poorly done in. These pangs are power are power as both knees lock up ashamed to move under me.

Βροδοπαχεες αγναι Χαριτες, δεντε Λιος κοραι Ye rosy-armed, pure Graces, come, Daughters of Zeus, be near! Oh, wherefore have my lips been dumb So long in silence drear? And why have I so cheerless been, So sorrowful and wild? It was because ye were not seen, Because ye had not smiled. Although his prayer the Muses bless, The poet doth require That ye, in frolic gentleness, Should stand beside his lyre. Ne’er will he mortal ear delight, Nor care-vex’d spirit ease; Except he sing with ye in sight, Rose-flushed among the trees.

The Augsburger walks with Dante through the hell of the departed. He addresses the inconsolable and reports to them that on earth some things have changed. When I’d reported to the couple, thus That up there no one murders now for gain Since no one owns a thing, the faithless spouse Who’d beguiled that woman so improperly Lifted his hand, now tied to hers by chains And looked at her and turned perplexed to me So no one steals, if  there’s no property? I shook my head. And as their hands just touched I saw a blush suffuse the woman’s cheeks. He saw it too and cried, She hasn’t once Shown so much since the day she was seduced! And murmuring, Then there’s no abstinence? They moved off swiftly. And the ties that fused Them tight were of no weight or consequence. Translated from the German