A Week in the Cyclades

The News From Mount Olympus

 “It is difficult/to get the news from poems/yet men die miserably every day/

for lack of what is found there.” 

—William Carlos Williams

One week in the Cyclades

and it all becomes clear as standing

up to my chest in the clear blue Aegean,

a six-inch Sargo

wiggling over to bite a scab

on my shin with his needle-sharp teeth

and in that gasp of pain

I know that we are scavengers,

driven from the warm salty sea eons ago,

scared out of our earthly wits,

soon enough (as in ages later) inventing

jealous and vindictive gods in our own image

to protect us, sanctifying

godless vengeance along these beautiful

ancient islands, the remains of our barbarism

unearthed in the ruins at Delos,

Mycenae, Knossos, humanity’s best

intentions, the magnificent art, poetry, music,

buried in the dead flesh

of an unthinkable belief that havoc

butchery carnage could be traded for the blessed

illusion of safety as promised

by those unworthy of our faith, fake

gods who feed mercilessly off our tender souls,

cruel deities who will not

save us from our scarred and sacred selves,

or write the beautiful poetry of our own salvation.

—SL, New Paltz, NY, October 2024