At New Olympus's Feet
By Izak R. Crafford
For: Prince Madzora, Hennie Duvenhage and Adriaan Odendaal who each inspired some element of the imagery
Locus iste a Deo factus est:
“Locus iste a Deo factus est”:
A solitary prayer
Uttered in a nearly empty glade surrounded by destruction – a tearful gratitude amidst despair,
“inaestimabile sacramentum, irreprehensibilis est.”
The citadel:
Last outpost of collapsing empire,
looming o’er an old metropolis, now empty, ravaged by luting and by fire.
Sounds the knell
of the empire’s death – they carry the stone away
and use old tapestries as doormats: they trample the images and say
“It is well!”
A tarmac sea:
Several roads converge
to form a tarmac sea from which, by the sun’s passionate burning a new Olympus does emerge.
They raise their eyes to its top – the crowd gathered there – and see
a pantheon of glorious gods to which they pray
their timid prayers. They say
to those running from the citadel destroyed, on bended knee:
“You’ll be of us once you repent”,
but those souls looking back up the road to the citadel, [destroyed by them in the names of the
many gleeful gods sent
to carry the stone away for building a glorious edifice], stand at the edge of the crowd, despised.
Son of an old empire:
He stands at the edge of the crowd
looking up at the new Olympus, seeking out the gods floating in a cloud.
But there’s nothing there to see. He glances quickly up the road and recalls the fire
and them who carried away the stones with glee
to build their gods a temple and a new city for all to see.
With of words a golden wire
they suffocate his heart and soul
as he tries to live in their metropole
of which the marketplace is a sea of tar where they muster their soldiers and build the old imperium
a glorious pyre.
The stoning:
He stands before the hungry crowd,
his head in desperate anguish bowed,
to an old god, [abhorred by those who to the new Olympus for their guidance look], praying,
with longing for the ancient place and the old church their moaning.
The first stone smashes against his back and he cries out;
he does not drop as they wish him to but swings about
to face his persecutor’s lost eyes full of bloodlust.
A Note from the Author:
"When creating this poem, I knew full well that it would ruffle a few feathers and cause some upset, but I created it anyway. It is a re-encoding of personal observations, if one could use such a term. The poem was inspired by a number of conversations with those it is dedicated to and often uses imagery they either directly suggested or inspired. Using a parable was inspired by a number of Brecht parables I was exposed to in German literature. The poem essentially tells the story of what currently is happening to civilisation at the hands of the newly liberal, enlightened world, carrying away and repurposing whatever they want from the old order and despising and destroying the rest. And what are the gods of new Olympus? Well, one could say that they are human rights, one could say that they are all the isms which govern our actions and even our thoughts. What one definitely can say is that they are unreal, quite illusory and that obedience to them can tear one apart by forcing one to mask oneself completely. The poem 'Priest of the mountain gods' is consequent upon this poem." - Izak R. Crafford