Zero Gravity

If JM Coetzee had Written the Iliad

A spear is a way of coming to terms with the world.

Nothing special about it as signifier; one

amongst many.

Thus Apollo's priestess spoke

standing before the sea, arm stretched outwards

as if in fascist salute, as if to sat (with sincerity or

in irony we cannot tell)

that this war, all wars,

are the war of the Father.

And this being established, we cut

(or pan) from the slit-eyeleted resolve of great Agamemnon,

locked into the

profound mastery of blood over bronze,

across

space

(and

where we see

what is envisaged, what

the gods have mapped out:

a city level led, lives forfeit, children

slaughtered with a

mathematical precision

(each bloody bead on a single string abacus)

and wives spread-eagled on the sand, singled out

to bear history's sour load, it's

unsayable truth.

Think then, if you would,

who is this Homer? Who

bade him speak?

What trickery of a blindness is this

that can speak such eyes,

dance such darkness?

Can move

blade straight to nerve at

unforgivable distance?