Image: Goya's 'The Colossus' is in the public domain.
Poem, copyright, Ian Irvine, 2018, all rights reserved.


The age of the Olympian celebrities is passing.

Prometheus knows the truth: the band of brothers

are psychopaths - robbers and torturers. Narcissism

is the Olympian disease. This thuggish band

are obsessed with being adored, sexual conquests,

war mongering and familial bickering.

Such pettiness as the humans suffer!
 

Did we swallow their propaganda on Cronos?

They say they defeated, shackled and humiliated him

to save the (musical) cosmos. He has

become the raw god-flesh upon which the

Olympians established their Empire. Watch them

(up there on stage) humming with pride!

But why imprison Cronos? Why not just

eject, delete, unfriend the crusty old Titan?
 

Conquerers concoct predictable narratives:

Uncivilised cannibal! Money-grubbing aggressor!

They paint the vanquished as Goya did: 

angry colossus. A story to justify invasions -

'civilised' brutality and thievery. The

pillaging of foreign cities.
 

Choose your version: Cronos overthrew Ophion,

the wicked serpent, then proceeded to rule justly.

(Delegated to Justitia, Astrea and Dike)

The peasants honoured him as harvest patron,

and praised him for the Golden Age.

In the Saturnalia, harmony, timelessness and

the absence of social hierarchies prevailed.

And Astrea - Justice - lived side by side

with humans.
 

The Olympian version features:

a dark prophesy, a bleak cosmology, paternal paranoia,

swallowed child Gods, the necessary ascent

of Zeus, and the urgent need to

'Tartarise' the Paradise Gods.
 

Who should we believe - the Olympian victors

or the silenced Titans (deep in the earth)?
 

In Tartarus, the chains of Cronos are broken, so ...

in the next episode, Prometheus, friend to humans,

will be unchained from his rock. (Pity the hungry eagles!)

Aphrodite, the blissful Titan, will resume her

original role as an Intersectionist Feminist.
 

Side by side they advance: Cronos,

Prometheus, Astrea and Aphrodite.
 

Don't believe the fascist propaganda - after

years of absence (amongst the Libran stars) -

Astrea and Justitia (Maat and Sesheta) return

with scales, blindfolds and swords.
 

The Golden Age resumes!

A breakthrough is imminent!

The old Gods will not be jealous

of the fires the humans kindle!

Astrea returns from the star lands,

and even-tempered Justitia assesses

the crimes of men and gods alike.
 

A question now ( a sudden realization):

In Goya's famous painting

Who is the oppressor, and

Who is the oppressed?


[This poem is part of Ian's 'Explain Yourself to Goya' sequence]