Sandra Jones

Jealous of ravaged Oedipus you must be,

Abandoned hound of Odysseus,

Left crucified at the top of a hill of refuse

To see all and touch nothing;

Because perhaps, like Odysseus’s loyal hound,

Upon closeness with your master

After 20 years at sea

You expire, forgotten,  

swollen with passion and devotion, 

as he walks past pretending to be someone else. 

 

Servant of Juno fooled by Mercury,

You lost the sacred cow,

Forlorn watchtower 

with a hundred eyes in strict rotation, 

sleeping in pairs, 

with a choir of irises 

conscious and futile. 

You poor animate tool,

Devoted and ignored 

chimeric simulacra 

of God’s omniscience,

Chained to a tree left cold in the rain with scraps for food;

What is the power of omniscience 

when you are a slave to your mighty gift?  

These visions are bars,

The knowledge it portends, 

a mire 

of crooked hubris. 

Fearsome guard and enforcer,

Recorder and notifier,

Servant and lord,

Subaltern antihero,

Lost in the machinery

Of the beloved master’s wheel

To watch and wait 

For fortune to turn  

the eternal return

to stay, seeing

your scream

dissolve.