Today’s poem, by Rainer Maria Rilke.

No poem today - instead, an article about Zeus-Ammon and Alexander.

To a Snowflake

Francis Thompson

What heart could have thought you?— Past our devisal (O filigree petal!) Fashioned so purely, Fragilely, surely, From what Paradisal Imagineless metal, Too costly for cost? Who hammered you, wrought you, From argentine vapour?— “God was my shaper. Passing surmisal, He hammered, He wrought me, From curled silver vapour, To lust of His mind;— Thou could’st not have thought me! So purely, so palely, Tinily, surely, Mightily, frailly, Insculped and embossed, With His hammer of wind, And His graver of frost.”

Hymn to Apollo

John Keats

God of the golden bow, And of the golden lyre, And of the golden hair, And of the golden fire, Charioteer Of the patient year, Where — where slept thine ire, When like a blank idiot I put on thy wreath, Thy laurel, thy glory, The light of thy story, Or was I a worm — too low crawling, for death? O Delphic Apollo!

The Thunderer grasp’d and grasp’d, The Thunderer frown’d and frown’d; The eagle’s feathery mane For wrath became stiffen’d — the sound Of breeding thunder Went drowsily under, Muttering to be unbound. O why didst thou pity, and for a worm Why touch thy soft lute Till the thunder was mute, Why was not I crush’d — such a pitiful germ? O Delphic Apollo!

The Pleiades were up, Watching the silent air; The seeds and roots in the Earth Were swelling for summer fare; The Ocean, its neighbour, Was at its old labour, When, who — who did dare To tie, like a madman, thy plant round his brow, And grin and look proudly, And blaspheme so loudly, And live for that honour, to stoop to thee now? O Delphic Apollo!

Today's poem: not a poem.

A spiritual reflection, by Thomas Merton.

XVI - Hymn to Asclepius

Homer

I begin to sing of Asclepius, son of Apollo and healer of sicknesses.  In the Dotian plain fair Coronis, daughter of King Phlegyas, bare him, a great joy to men, a soother of cruel pangs.

And so hail to you, lord: in my song I make my prayer to thee!

Today's Flickr photo with the most hits: Asclepius, in the archaeological museum of Antalya (statue from the ancient city of Perge).

Skull Song

Genevieve Taggard

A sea-god, whose father had been a mortal, becomes a skeleton.

The skin of the sea was thick, to-night, And the tone of the sea was dull; When I found by the edge of the sullen sea The half of a sea-god’s skull.

Half of a sea-god’s skull was there, Half of a sea-god’s tail. When I dug them out of the clutch of the sand The peering moon went pale.

The peering moon went pale, because Her other eye had seen The other half of the sea-god’s bones Ten thousand fathom green . . .

Ten thousand fathom green with sea, The sea-god’s other bones Swayed in a dead sea-goddess’s arms On a pile of sea-washed stones.

The skin of the sea was thick, to-night, And the tone of the sea was dull, While I buried away from the sinister sea All the mortal part of a skull.

Egyptian Love Poem

Anonymous papyrus - Chester Beatty Library

I pass by his house, Finding its door open. My beloved stands beside his mother, His siblings all around him. He looks at me as I pass, (But) I alone rejoice. Had his mother known my heart, She would have gone inside for a moment. O Golden One, put that in her heart, so I may hurry to my beloved, and kiss him before his companions!

Today's Flickr photo with the most hits: the lion-headed Goddess, Sekhmet, protector of Egypt.

Temple

Ashlee Haze

the pastor says

we are having church

and I begin to wonder what it means to

possess a thing you cannot touch

I caught the holy ghost once

after chasing him in the back pews

held onto him long enough to convince my mother of salvation

then went home and set him free in the wild

how pompous of man to

think himself temple

don’t you know I have called out to God

in emptier structures?

the doors of the church are open

come, sit

lay your burdens at the altar

eat the body and its crumbs, sip the blood

until you are satisfied

I am unlearning how to erect myself

as a stained-glass home

this pipe-organ heart is guilty of calling out to the godless

especially men who peek during prayer 

Sailing to Byzantium

William Butler Yates

I That is no country for old men. The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees, —Those dying generations—at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect. II An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence; And therefore I have sailed the seas and come To the holy city of Byzantium. III O sages standing in God's holy fire As in the gold mosaic of a wall, Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, And be the singing-masters of my soul. Consume my heart away; sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is; and gather me Into the artifice of eternity. IV Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enamelling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Ghazal: To hold me

Mimi Khalvati

I want to be held. I want somebody dear to hold me in the wind and the rain when nobody’s near to hold me.

I want to be touched as the tree touches sky and sky touches earth so horizons appear to hold me.

I want to strike out as a flock strikes for home and home is now this, now that, warm hemisphere to hold me.

I want to uncoil a long river of hair, my beloved to sleep, to cross sleep’s frontier to hold me.

I want all that has been denied me. And more. Much more than God in some lonely stratosphere to hold me.

I want hand and eye, sweet roving things, and land for grazing, praising, and the last pioneer to hold me.

I want my ship to come in, hopes to run high before my back’s so bowed even children fear to hold me.

I want to die being held. Hearing my name thrown, thrown like a rope from a very old pier to hold me.

I want to catch the last echoes, reel them in like a curing-song in the creel of my ear to hold me.

I want Rodolfo to sing, flooding the gods, Ah Mimi! as if I were her and he, here, to hold me.

The City that will not Repent

Vachel Lindsay

Climbing the heights of Berkeley Nightly I watch the West. There lies new San Francisco, Sea-maid in purple dressed, Wearing a dancer's girdle All to inflame desire: Scorning her days of sackcloth, Scorning her cleansing fire. See, like a burning city Sets now the red sun's dome. See, mystic firebrands sparkle There on each store and home. See how the golden gateway Burns with the day to be — Torch-bearing fiends of portent Loom o'er the earth and sea. Not by the earthquake daunted Nor by new fears made tame, Painting her face and laughing Plays she a new-found game. Here on her half-cool cinders 'Frisco abides in mirth, Planning the wildest splendour Ever upon the earth. Here on this crumbling rock-ledge 'Frisco her all will stake, Blowing her bubble-towers, Swearing they will not break, Rearing her Fair transcendent, Singing with piercing art, Calling to Ancient Asia, Wooing young Europe's heart. Here where her God has scourged her Wantoning, singing sweet: Waiting her mad bad lovers Here by the judgment-seat! 'Frisco, God's doughty foeman, Scorns and blasphemes him strong. Tho' he again should smite her She would not slack her song. Nay, she would shriek and rally — 'Frisco would ten times rise! Not till her last tower crumbles, Not till her last rose dies, Not till the coast sinks seaward, Not till the cold tides beat Over the high white Shasta, 'Frisco will cry defeat. God loves this rebel city, Loves foemen brisk and game, Tho', just to please the angels, He may send down his flame. God loves the golden leopard Tho' he may spoil her lair. God smites, yet loves the lion. God makes the panther fair. Dance then, wild guests of 'Frisco, Yellow, bronze, white and red! Dance by the golden gateway — Dance, tho' he smite you dead!

Hymn before Sun-rise in the Vale of Chamouni

Samuel Taylor Coleridge - he sent the concluding verses of this poem to Mrs Brabant of Devizes on its completion in 1815.

Hast thou a charm to stay the morning-star In his deep course? So long he seems to pause On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc! The Arve and Arveiron at thy base Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form! Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines, How silently! Around thee and above Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black, An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it, As with a wedge! But when I look again, It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, Thy habitation from eternity! O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee, Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer I worshipped the Invisible alone.

 Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my Thought, Yea, with my Life and Life’s own secret joy: Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfused, Into the mighty vision passing—there As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven.

 Awake, my soul! not only passive praise Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,  Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake, Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake! Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my Hymn.

 Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the Vale! O struggling with the darkness all the night,  And visited all night by troops of stars, Or when they climb the sky or when they sink: Companion of the morning-star at dawn, Thyself Earth’s rosy star, and of the dawn Co-herald: wake, O wake, and utter praise! Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in Earth? Who fill’d thy countenance with rosy light? Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?

 And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad! Who called you forth from night and utter death, From dark and icy caverns called you forth, Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, For ever shattered and the same for ever? Who gave you your invulnerable life, Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, Unceasing thunder and eternal foam? And who commanded (and the silence came), Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?

 Ye Ice-falls! ye that from the mountain’s brow Adown enormous ravines slope amain—  Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge! Motionless torrents! silent cataracts! Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun  Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?— God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God! God! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice!  Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!

 Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost! Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle’s nest! Ye eagles, play-mates of the mountain-storm! Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! Ye signs and wonders of the element! Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!

 Thou too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast— Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low  In adoration, upward from thy base Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears, Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud, To rise before me—Rise, O ever rise, Rise like a cloud of incense from the Earth!  Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills, Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven, Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky, And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

Athena Ode

Barbara Hamby

Road diva, divine mixologist, cancan dancer     of the mandible wars, show me the way of mind over what’s-the-matter-with-you, girl, swirling from mouths     of righteous dudes. O goddess of attitudes, yes, ma’am, Madame of the owl tiara, bird woman enthroned,     big cog of the cosmos, born from the noggin of Zeus, hear my prayer, because I’m adrift in a sea of words, my boat     is cardboard pinned together with newspaper headlines of the latest war, springing leaks that generals plug     with their double-talk, duckwalk to the edge of the cliff, and we’re holding the bill, still due after ten thousand years,     while women wail in shanty shacks, stack cordwood for the winter, open cans of baked beans, bust the seams     of polyester pants made by the Chinese. O please, show us the way to put some spring in our spring. Bring     us a bunch of lilacs and pork rinds, something sweet after tornadoes whip the roofs off our double-wides,     our bungalows deep in the crevices of mountains older than you. Make us a stew of new shoots, green onions,     pole beans, and summer corn, for we are born from the dark earth, but we’ve brushed it off, no monkey     here, though sometimes we’re all ape, trying to escape the knuckle-dragging dance to the finish,     when it’s so clear there’s no one here. O goddess of sway, don’t give me away, let me pretend I’m a player     with an ace in the hole, because I know I have nothing, but sometimes only nothing can open the door to something else.

Apollo

Eilish Mulholland

“Jesus went up with the spacecraft” At least that’s what the priest said. A interorbit of some heaven Should have been there,

For the crew sticking their noses Out of a spacecraft to delight in his face. The iconography should capture it, Among the stars, among the blackness–

A throat pulsating in anticipation Looking for a morning star, a bethlehem For a half shut eye That braces itself against a cold gloom.

Amongst the Galaxy their fingers clutch now To linger in the first frost, Looking for a convent of Moses They should have met him in their ascension.

Imitator, Your plaque of the First Lord Kicks the ark off into a Canadarm And makes St Peter laugh at the gates

Touching the source of his catechism He strokes under his cloak And spurns his creationism To the clutch of the nebula