Posts Tagged ‘Ulysses’
I visited my “Motherland” once; (July 30, 2009)
I read Ulysses once; it was all ancient Greek.
All languages are suitable for writing poems:
Poems are meant to express the spirit of the Land;
Long before languages were created or codified.
Samuel Butler demonstrated that Ulysses was written by a woman,
A young woman and single; I like that better;
It is more convincing.
Butler confirmed that Ulysses’ trip was around Sicily.
Seven years to tour Sicily is irrelevant.
Years in ancient times were measured by seasons.
The shorter year was winter; the longer one was the extended long dry season.
One systematic mind split the differences in moon rotations.
Another mathematical mind worshiped number three.
His enemy preferred the symmetrical number four.
Years kept shifting in length.
It was a time of confusion and rare standards.
It was a time of total freedom for ignorance
Mainly for the “free men”.
Slaves were redundant and obeyed the will of their masters.
They still do on a larger scales, number and ignominy.
The masters are mostly regrouped in “Secret Clubs” of free men;
Sometimes in veto power nations around a United Nation.
I visited my “Motherland” once.
I returned to my City-State of Itaca once.
I had no Penelope there waiting for me:
I would never care for a dumb witch waiting for a war man.
I have never been a war man: I fled the war zone for reasons.
I visited my “Motherland” once.
I visited my “Motherland” with my new family.
I called up my exiled friends to join me.
I didn’t care to face little men and little souls;
Petrified and perched on mountain peaks.
I toured my motherland solely with my family like a tourist:
Nature and natural phenomena are romantic and truer to my origins.
The children loved my motherland;
They had plenty of fun with super energetic and fun children.
They climbed trees, jumped walls and cliffs.
They played war battles with sticks;
On land, seas, and around the galaxies.
Fire crackers a go-go; makeshift guns and swords flailing around.
Many wounds and scars to mend;
Barely missing their folks; the tamed ones.
It was a dangerous habit experiencing natural chaos among the kids’ world.
I won’t allow my children this extravagant climate;
They won’t visit my motherland as long as in my protection.
I visited my “Motherland” once.
I fled as quickly as the airport was re-opened.
I boarded the ships of my adoptive nation;
Evacuating its citizens from a worn torn dysfunctional society.
I visited my “Motherland” once.
Nobody cared to ask me about my life in my “adoptive” society.
They blabbered about stories and anecdotes of the dead and mostly the dying.
They recounted of newer generations, totally irrelevant to me.
Nobody cared to ask how much I suffered and struggled to survive.
Everybody mocked the caring soul who ventured to know the new me.
I visited my “Motherland” once.
I am currently living in a standardized society,
Highly organized and administered for just the free people:
A society every bit the dream of racist Plato in his Republic.
I visited with trepidation:
I had been given a medal of honor in my adoptive society.
I kept on my high white horse and barely mingled.
They insisted on raising me on shoulders and necks.
I lamely fought this uncalled for barbaric show of substituted glory.
Another medal of honor was attached on my lapel.
The officials never cared to investigate if I was proud of my origin.
I was a sample of men worthy of the motherland’s origin.
I visited my “Motherland” once.
I visited with hesitation; I am back almost broke financially.
A life of learning and struggles is irrelevant.
I kept my silence, wrapped in mysteries.
I created my own island.
With inexistent public transportations
It is so easy and comfortable creating islands;
Alongside islands of communities.
I returned for good to my island.
Many poets toured the world for inspirations.
They returned to keep silent.
The world was too gruesome to laud humanity;
Miserable beings were no inspirations for chants and songs.
Pablo Neruda was also frustrated and lived in solitude abroad.
He clawed to his roots, the toiling and brave workers.
His “Canto general” was a culmination of the spirit recounting its origins;
Of dirt, mud, forests, rivers, sand, wind, wilderness, and the survival of man.
Neruda returned to chant the dignity of South Americana.
All languages are suitable for writing poems and the best ones.
It is the spirit of the Land that chants through the soul.
No need to be ashamed of traditions and customs;
All civilizations had almost similar traditions and customs.
Cultures that banished theirs for the sake of modernity
Are not bearable communities for the living.
Cultures that banished theirs for the sake of modernity
Transferred them to exclusive clubs, secretive associations,
The guardians of the customs and traditions
To rule, govern, and safeguard the continuity of the “Free elected Men”
List of posts (june21-29, 2009)
Posted by: adonis49 on: June 30, 2009
380. Reactions to the genocide in the Sabra and Chaltila camps; (June 21, 2009)
381. Women: Urban and Rural (Al Said, Egypt); (June 22, 2009)
382. Modern Times Ulysses; (June 22, 2009)
383. Women: Urban and rural (Cairo, Egypt); June 23, 2009
384. The Bible of Global Problems: Global Resolutions; (June 23, 2009)
385. Women in Foreplay; (June 24, 2009)
386. Global Resolutions of World problems; (June 28, 2009)
387. “A summer in Jerusalem” by Cochana Miller Boukhobza (June 28, 2009)
388. The Days of Pardon; (June 29, 2009)
389. Another wave of assassinations readied: Bi-Weekly report (#26) (June 29, 2009)
You want to return where?
Posted by: adonis49 on: June 30, 2009
Ulysses Revisited (June 22, 2009)
Ulysses in the Odyssey was away of his City-State Ithaca for 20 years. The first ten years were spent battling Troy. The next ten years were disposed of in other kinds of adventures and he was buffeted by storms and sea dangers. Ulysses was very lucky being loved by Calypso for over seven years in a paradise–like island. The love of Ulysses and Calypso were mutual; in fact, Ulysses knew Calypso far better than he knew Penelope; he loved Calypso much more than Penelope. Ulysses real life was not in Ithaca; he matured and experienced life outside of Ithaca. That Ulysses’ nostalgia for Ithaca to be so great is not within the realm of reason or of feelings. Homer wanted Ulysses to return for some other purposes. The stronger nostalgia is the poorer the memory. Nostalgia is self-sufficient in emotions and absorbed in its sufferings; it does not need any refreshing of reminiscences.
We find Ulysses sleeping under an ancient familiar olive tree in Ithaca. How many familiar trees remain after 20 years of absence in our modern times? The harbor is unchanged. A single bulldozer can move a small hill and open a breach into a new horizon, or block another one. Ulysses realizes that he is in Ithaca.
After killing the suitors to Penelope then Ulysses felt bored. His supposedly ancient compatriots are strangers to him; they are telling Ulysses stories of events that happened in Ithaca and people that died or whatever. Ulysses is not interested in these unilateral conversations; he is waiting for someone to ask him about his adventures and life during the last 20 years. No one was interested in Ulysses’ life in the last 20 years; no one asked him “Tell us your adventure”. Fortunately, Ulysses was shipwrecked in Pheacie on his way to Ithaca. The king of Pheacie was interested in the stranger Ulysses and his adventures; Ulysses felt voluble and told his story in four long songs.
Ulysses realized that his essence and the treasure of his life lay out of Ithaca. At this advanced age the present of Ulysses is fidgeted because the future is no longer a project or a vision to contemplate and plan for. The only alternative for Ulysses to fill the present is to recount his very alive past 20 years. No one in Ithaca is interested in the last 20 years of Ulysses.
People figure out that they will live to be eighty as of the latest estimates in developed nations; implicitly, they admit that they will die and that they must be living in a developed State. People always are absolutely certain that they will outlive their best friends by at least a decade; it is a matter of ego. Youth doesn’t think about future; it is far away and redundant. When we reach 30 then our present has value with urgency. We live our present according to how we view our future; we spend our present commensurate to our plans and projects expected in a future that will not change but for our specific projects and ideas. Whatever change is forecasted for the world community is redundant. People over 60 have a chance to re-invent their lives or spend their present recalling their past; it is time to either write the autobiography or leave peacefully. Homer is taking the task of recording “Ulysses Memoirs”. Ulysses is pretty old for his time and killing the suitors of Penelope must have exhausted the last shred of energy he saved. The Odyssey is rightfully not interested of what happened before Ulysses went to war against Troy; that period is totally irrelevant to the story: Ulysses had forgotten that part of his early life anyway.
Immigrants of my acquaintances come to visit after long absence. As I try to ask about their life abroad there is always someone to interrupt me and divert the subject to local events, especially stupid local politics; stupid because I am no politician. The immigrants do not get back to my question simply because they were no Ulysses in the countries they lived in; over there it is daily toil, a wretched life for stupid survival. Not many made it rich and their absence had no value or significance. Returning immigrants were no Ulysses; they did not live with a Calypso on an enchanted Island and served by slaves for every whim they had. They were the slaves and they did slave. Nowadays, societies in developed States are not that interested in strangers: strangers are just statistics and grouped haphazardly for the sake of classification and central data processing. Immigrants don’t have much to tell; they fled for greener pastures that turned dry; dollars were not found on the streets. Whatever rich life they had is irrelevant if not supported by actual material riches. In any case, immigrants were too busy to enjoy their present and memorize the good days; whatever they recall are the worst days which are not pleasing for story telling.
Immigrants who are in their sixties should not think returning “home”; they should banish “nostalgia” from their vocabulary; they should dissociate from people frequently mentioning “nostalgia”. Home is where they are now; they do not need further exacerbations of realizing that they are strangers in their “homeland”. Except if they decided to write their autobiography; then this would be the best location to remembering their real life abroad.
Ulysses would have not found his old familiar olive tree; the unchanged harbor would have been studded with performing monster cranes. Penelope would have been too old to ward off suitors if any. Penelope would not have been waiting if she was pretty and intelligent enough in the first place. Homer is a magician for transforming wretched reality into poetry, for describing nostalgia in its proper meaning, for showing us the period of real life and our inconsiderate valuing of the present.
Note: The theme of this article was presented in the French novel “The Ignorance” of Milan Kundera.
Modern Times Ulysses
Posted by: adonis49 on: June 22, 2009
Modern Times Ulysses (June 22, 2009)
Ulysses in the Odyssey was away of his City-State Ithaca for 20 years. The first ten years were spent battling Troy. The next ten years were disposed of in other kinds of adventures and he was buffeted by storms and sea dangers. Ulysses was very lucky being loved by Calypso for over seven years in a paradise–like island. The love of Ulysses and Calypso were mutual; in fact, Ulysses knew Calypso far better than he knew Penelope; he loved Calypso much more than Penelope. Ulysses real life was not in Ithaca; he matured and experienced life outside of Ithaca. That Ulysses’ nostalgia for Ithaca to be so great is not within the realm of reason or of feelings. Homer wanted Ulysses to return for some other purposes. The stronger nostalgia is the poorer the memory. Nostalgia is self-sufficient in emotions and absorbed in its sufferings; it does not need any refreshing of reminiscences.
We find Ulysses sleeping under an ancient familiar olive tree in Ithaca. How many familiar trees remain after 20 years of absence in our modern times? The harbor is unchanged. A single bulldozer can move a small hill and open a breach into a new horizon, or block another one. Ulysses realizes that he is in Ithaca.
After killing the suitors to Penelope then Ulysses felt bored. His supposedly ancient compatriots are strangers to him; they are telling Ulysses stories of events that happened in Ithaca and people that died or whatever. Ulysses is not interested in these unilateral conversations; he is waiting for someone to ask him about his adventures and life during the last 20 years. No one was interested in Ulysses’ life in the last 20 years; no one asked him “Tell us your adventure”. Fortunately, Ulysses was shipwrecked in Pheacie on his way to Ithaca. The king of Pheacie was interested in the stranger Ulysses and his adventures; Ulysses felt voluble and told his story in four long songs.
Ulysses realized that his essence and the treasure of his life lay out of Ithaca. At this advanced age the present of Ulysses is figited because the future is no longer a project or a vision to contemplate and plan for. The only alternative for Ulysses to fill the present is to recount his very alive past 20 years. No one in Ithaca is interested in the last 20 years of Ulysses.
People figure out that they will live to be eighty as of the laterst estimates in developed nations; implicitely, they admit that they will die and that they must be living in a developed State. People always are absolutely certain that they will outlive their best friends by at least a decade; it is a matter of ego. Youth doesn’t think about future; it is far away and redundant. When we reach 30 then our present has value with urgency. We live our present according to how we view our future; we spend our present commensurate to our plans and projects expected in a future that will not change but for our specific projects and ideas. Whatever change is forecasted for the world community is redundant. People over 60 have a chance to re-invent their lives or spend their present recalling their past; it is time to either write the autobiography or leave peacefully. Homer is taking the task of recording “Ulysses Memoirs”. Ulysses is pretty old for his time and killing the suitors of Penelope must have exhausted the last shred of energy he saved. The Odyssey is rightfully not interested of what happened before Ulysses went to war against Troy; that period is totally irrelevant to the story: Ulysses had forgotten that part of his early life anyway.
Immigrants of my acquaintances come to visit after long absence. As I try to ask about their life abroad there is always someone to interrupt me and divert the subject to local events, especially stupid local politics; stupid because I am no politician. The immigrants do not get back to my question simply because they were no Ulysses in the countries they lived in; over there it is daily toil, a wretched life for stupid survival. Not many made it rich and their absence had no value or significance. Returning immigrants were no Ulysses; they did not live with a Calypso on an enchanted Island and served by slaves for every whim they had. They were the slaves and they did slave. Nowadays, societies in developed States are not that interested in strangers: strangers are just statistics and grouped haphazardly for the sake of classification and central data processing. Immigrants don’t have much to tell; they fled for greener pastures that turned dry; dollars were not found on the streets. Whatever rich life they had is irrelevant if not supported by actual material riches. In any case, immigrants were too busy to enjoy their present and memorize the good days; whatever they recall are the worst days which are not pleasing for story telling.
Immigrants who are in their sixties should not think returning “home”; they should banish “nostalgia” from their vocabulary; they should dissociate from people frequently mentioning “nostalgia”. Home is where they are now; they do not need further exacerbations of realizing that they are strangers in their “homeland”. Except if they decided to write their autobiography; then this would be the best location to remembering their real life abroad.
Ulysses would have not found his old familiar olive tree; the unchanged harbor would have been studded with performing monster cranes. Penelope would have been too old to ward off suitors if any. Penelope would not have been waiting if she was pretty and intelligent enough in the first place. Homer is a magician for transforming wretched reality into poetry, for describing nostalgia in its proper meaning, for showing us the period of real life and our inconsiderate valuing of the present.
Note: The theme of this article was presented in the French novel “The Ignorance” of Milan Kundera.
Adonis Diaries 