Power Shutdown of Hercules

Blogger friend, travel writer, versatile photographer, and columnist and editor, Lakshmi Sharath, recently visited Jordan. Amman , the capital, is situated on hilly area of north-western Jordan. The city was originally built on seven hills. The Citadel hill of Amman, is home to the Temple of Hercules, which once held a 13 metre statue of Hercules.  All that remains today, amidst the marble pillars and ruined structures of the temple, is  a giant fist of Hercules, lying , clutching the earth, some distance away from a piece of elbow.

Hercules , was a demigod, in the pantheon of ancient Gods , who had very colorful and eventful lives.  To atone for some mindless violence, he was ordered to do some jobs for King of Mycenae, and these, equally revengeful and violent assignments were known as the labors of Hercules.  

Maybe he never learnt a proper lesson.

Maybe we should.

(photograph by Lakshmi Sharath)

High
on a Citadel in Amman
in rippling musculature
he stood
celebrated in his own temple.

Lauded by those
who knew
the labors of Hercules;
all about
killing, trapping,fetching,
getting rid of,rounding up,
and destroying;
lions,boars,bulls, gods,
apples, belts, kings, damsels
and such.

Today,
fallen,
only
his massive fist remains,
tightly clutching
the Earth,
elbow
orphaned
a bit away.

A pointer
that
living is all about
sensible talk,
hand-shakes,
reasoning,
and tolerance,
and those
entities
that abuse this
for selfish power gain,
will experience,
a power shutdown,
and leave them
fallen and scrambling
trying
to hold on
to an earth,
fast slipping through their fingers.

Dark clouds of the Mind !

My friend Sylvia ( who probably has a child a bit younger than me) , is an absolute whiz with her camera, and her almost daily blog post is a panorama of beautiful things she sees either from her new house, or at some place she visits.

I've been inspired to make some headers for her blog , purely out of a sense of fun, and this picture of the black clouds posted in her Sky Watch Friday series, got the grey matter into a tangle. Being a great believer in MS Paint helped.

And a poem resulted.

I show the wonderful original, and the "messed up" resultant header below !

(Click on each to see a larger picture !)

(photographed by Sylvia Kirkwood)
They fly around,
the monsters
of the mind,
dark and agitated,
floating
through the
usual calm and blue...

Only to
dissipate
and timidly
go to pieces,
or trouble
someone else
some other time
in another land,
when
the Big yellow
appears from
behind the pines,
flashing
reassurance,
hope,
and peace

The Last Picture Show....

My friend Sylvia posts wonderful Sky views in her blog . And you get to enjoy her seasons through them.

Here's possibly something that happens twice a month. If we only noticed.....

(photo by Sylvia Kirkwood)
If
all the world's
a stage,
and all the sky
the curtain,
then,
given what
goes on
in the name
of
religion,
power,
insults,
fatwas,
defense,
attack,
and so on,
is it any wonder,
that the moon
peers
carefully,
again and again,
through
the stage curtain
before
making an effort
to appear
in the sky ?

Learning from flowers.....

A comment on this post about gardens where those colorful ones that delight the eyes, those simple ascetic types that enrich with their perfume, and what the garden has to say about it all....
(Photos courtsey: Kavi)



Those who cannot speak
learn to share
their best;
Riotous brilliant colors,
nodding petal heads
in agreement with
little jasmines,
whispering excitedly
hanging out in groups.
They have no limitations...

But we talking types,
blind seeing types,
fight on
about color,
and shape,
and size, and name.
We are so intelligent,
we never learn.
We are the mistakes.