PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

[after Constantine Cavafy's poem, "One Of Their

Gods," trans. by Keeley and Sherrard]

Being the stuff and substance of Poems, Eros and Ganymede,

a committed and seriously monogamous Homosexual couple,

were, like most Poems, enabled (even empowered) to move

through the dimensions---time and space---at their own

volition.  Ganymede was saddened by the thorough and

treacherous destruction of the ancient City, Troy,

his former, and well beloved home; and Eros, always

careful to respect and accommodate his lover's feelings,

brought him from that age into the late twentieth

century.  To all appearance, they presented as long-haired,

slender, adolescent boys---their bodies agile and

perfectly proportioned.  They favored a part of the

earth that was, in those days, known as the continent of

North America; and a part of it that was, in those days,

known as the United States; and a section of the country

that had been called the Mid-West.  They were eager to

abandon their Hellenic robes, and chose faded denim

bell-bottoms and very stylish stripey socks.  Shoes and

shirts were not an option for them; Eros and Ganymede

refused them altogether.  With a careful view to

both landscape and location, they discovered a certain

clearing about which a garden centered almost perfectly

circular; and this garden was surrounded by a copse of

ancient trees or profuse foliage and exquisitely ripening

fruit.  Several young men from the vicinity---among them, a

couple of varsity athletes (football, cross-country, track)---

were attracted to Eros and Ganymede and visited their grove

often.  But the two mythical lovers were wholly and fiercely

committed to their own relationship, and explained so gently.

They were able to introduce some of these visitors to each

other; and, although Homosexuality was in those days, not only

forbidden but sometimes violently persecuted, the couples

that formed through the agency of Eros and Ganymede were

compelled to observe caution, to meet (when outside the

grove) surreptitiously, and to admit nothing to even their

closest kith and kin.  This was the sorry state of affairs

that cast a dreadful shadow over those otherwise halcyon days.

Once, several haters attempted to infiltrate and invade the

grove---anxious to inflict assault and injury upon the

"faggots," but Eros and Ganymede were easily able to summon and

project upon the sky the hideous and horrific faces of the

three Gorgons---and these apparitions, though without substance,

so terrified the infiltrators (who, although they had not

slipped from the anus of a wooden horse were equally motivated

by rage and hatred) that they immediately withdrew, weeping and

gibbering as if their sanity had suddenly shattered.  (To the

best of my knowledge, they still reside in a certain institution

commissioned by appropriate authorization and appropriation

to confine that sort of excess from the general population.)

Rumor began to circulate that the grove was haunted, a place to be

assiduously avoided; but Eros and Ganymede believed, perhaps with

more credibility, that the grove was surrounded by the specters of

hatred and prejudice that denied to anyone the right to love and be

loved according to the soul's given nature.

Starward