AT THE TEMPLE OF THE MUSIC GOD
by Felix Purat
Memories of Baja California in Crete
Above the submarine chamber of Aegean Atlantis
Rugged slopes of the Sierra Giganta rise
My friend back then was indeed Anubis
An actual friend, always welcoming my arrival
With humble fanfare befitting friends
Succulent clams and octopus resurrect Loreto,
Old California’s beating heart
But here Orthodox shrines decorate Minoa
As Virgin Mary’s became my second mother
Beneath the shadow of the Sierra Giganta
In Café Ole we sipped upon lemonades
Watching the Pepsi plane fly by
A block away sat California’s corner stone
Salvatierra’s work completed long ago
How modern this is in the land of the Greeks –
They generate memories too precious for pithy reflections
Subtracting the dumbbells of time (and therefore value)
I see that I am young and foolish and so is my country
At the Temple of the Music God
As tunes flow through my waiting ears
The sun paints Apollo’s portal
The pigments of Helios shine
Ear hairs shrink from poignant solitude,
Too much noise in the big wide world
The rhythms of island and coast
Give faith to flesh and its offshoots
Satyric drumbeats moisten rocks
Banalities minimized for once
Into Olympian dimensions
For this I thank Apollo fair –
Nice guy even mortals did spite
How envious they must have been
Never plucking once a flat serenade
Then or now, a lyre never lies.
– Naxos, 2016
Minotaur, Where Art Thou?
O Moving Minotaur
So summarized by Pablo
Lay down your weary cart
And come get me!
How you must tire of
Stale, bland Athenians:
Their city is grimy now
Ugly and unphilosophical
Come out from your labyrinth,
Allow me to behold your
Courageously ugly beastliness
Instead of this cowardly beauty
In my artificial era where plastic is commendable
And no one person can claim
To walk safely upon any trail
I wish to feel the full depths of fear
To walk the path towards indomitability.
Waking up In a Strange House, Shaking
Exposed to the elements
Of hot Cretan weather
Too much makes me tremble
My nerves malfunction
The price of a penchant for solitude
In an extroverted nation
About the Author:
Felix Purat is the author of A Drinking Horn of Accumulated Expiries and a microchap titled Epicurean Ruminations from Turin & Beyond. He has been previously published in Two Thirds North, Orbis Int’l, Ink Sweat & Tears, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Pulsar, Poetry Salzburg Review and Vox Poetica, among others. Originally from Berkeley, CA, he currently lives in Slovakia.