Born of Plenty and of Poor
Of gods and of man
A longing for the intercourse
Of all things different
The daimon Eros
Shifts from boy to boy
Discovering the truth
Of transience
Bored of its Entropy
Eros longs for the Eternal
Becoming pregnant first with
Laws, Cities, States and Empires
As the dust collects
And they become but artifacts
The womb stretches once more
This time Experiments, Observations
Which birth in turn the Maths
And Universal Law
Oh how they never die
Once true and forever the same
As they fill the scrolls and
Tomes of Library
Eros learns what it is
For a child to grow old and so
She dreams of Eternal Youth
A light behind the brook
Sets fire to the bush
And thus Eros fashions
Philosophers and Saints
Riddles for which she can
Labor over in perpetua
And yet Eros discovers
Herself so far from that
Eternal Adonis for which
She yearned
Human, all too human
Yet child of gods
The daimon composes
The tragedies of earth
Into the melody of heaven
In that ever pregnant womb
Shakespeare and Baudelaire
Beethoven and Schoenberg
Michelangelo and Van Gogh
Her greatest children yet!
Oh how she panders
To her flute playing Socrates
Oh how she dotes upon
Her Nietzsche with a brush
Nearly being reduced to nothing
In a bubble of her own contemplation
And yet love only loves
What she has not
And so she turns away
From those angelic shadows
From their Hamlets and their Eroicas
From their Sistine Chapels and Annabel Lees
To that Light beyond the Cave
That cast them all
To find only the form of Beauty
Juxtaposed over the raping Satyr
Apollo and Dionysus
Standing betwixt, trading heels
In a Greek dance
And Eros utters:
I am the snake
That lured Adam and Eve
To Absolute Knowing
I eat myself, only to
Eat again, for I am
Desire
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New Classical 
beautiful post ❤
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Thank you for giving it a read!
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It’s a good commentary on Eros. I like how you wrote it into a story. Beginning to end. I like also how the concept is illusive— You’re not talking about love in a Christian sense. You’re talking about the Greek’s notion of Eros, or Desire.
Apollo and Dionysius dancing,—The subtle sexual tension of poetry. Apollo represents poetry and Dionysius represents pleasure. The pleasure of reading the poem.
What I really liked was how you related it to Law and Civilization. How desire orders a civilization.
Eros does fashion saints, in a strange way. The desire for life’s meaning, and the desire for order and comprehension, and the desire for beauty are what keep a saint a saint. The Philosopher desires knowledge, but the saint desires eternal truths.
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Thank you for taking a look and giving this poem such a close reading!
What I find to be interesting about poetry, whenever I make any public or show it to others, are the new understandings and interpretations of what said poem means and it’s aesthetic value. Your interpretation is largely what I had in mind while writing the poem. This piece was very much inspired by Plato’s dialogue The Symposium, which discusses various interpretations of Eros. One of the speeches describes how love leads one to love other individuals, and then the narrative becomes increasingly abstract(ie. love for laws, love for knowledge etc.) What I found interesting and unique about your analysis though, was the part about Apollo and Dionysus. A subtle sexual tension was very much what i was going for, though Apollo as poetry and Dionysus as pleasure (for poetry) is such an interesting way to read this and something I had not thought of until you mentioned it!
I really appreciate the time you gave this poem and the comment B. K. Neifert. Glad you liked it. I post a new poem or story every Friday here if you’re interested in reading more stuff like this.
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Definitely. I post erratically. Some days I’ll post two or three, sometimes seven, and other times I’ll go whole month without posting anything.
Yeah, there is a use for postmodern literary analysis. I have poems that nobody—unless they’re pychic—could understand the symbology. But, the overall poem is cogent enough to get a clear reading.
That’s what differs a good poet from an amateur. Taking up a concept this complex—which I might have guessed was the symposium—you need to communicate the thought clearly. Difficulty in writing isn’t a bad thing, just so long as there’s a clear meaning.
Not to say that some negative capability is a bad thing. It’s really not. Like, if a poem is too esoteric, you almost need negative capability to make sense of it. But, when a poem clearly communicates a meaning, that’s when the poem—I think—is a success.
But like you said, it doesn’t have to be exact. There will be differing interpretations, and a good piece will get interesting interpretations from you audience.
Like my dad once read my one novella, and he brought to light something I was unaware of in the text. But, it would turn out, he was right. Not to say that I’m right, but one of the theories in writing is the Autonomous Artwork, or the work without its author.
Very good piece. I’ll definitely be reading more from you. 🙂
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*Psychic
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