Purple cloths, the genuine sea-purple, in the furthest reaches of the sea, islands of sard, carnelian, chalcedony, where the air is temperate, krasis ton horon. Let the sails unfurl, let the hair flow loose. Iron limbs and darkened skin. Reinvention of love in the new Republic.
Unlike the ancient Greeks and Romans we have mobile phone technology and freedom. We can text our hallelujahs through cyberspace. We have big sugared drinks we can suck on and phones we carry around like pacifiers, minds numbed with conversation and brain-freeze, happy children of global consumerism. Who needs freedom? And when the big oaf dies his soul will painstakingly extract its long glistening abdomen from his nostril and fly off into the air on silver wings, to Hades perhaps, like a Homeric hero. When I look at a modern citizen of the Republic all I see is litter, trash, recyclables. Worn-out glitter. Pity, embarrassment, shame, disgust. Please let the Republic be a dream so I can wake up. “The best is to sleep dead-drunk on the beach” said the gun-runner of Harrar, with salt-encrusted skin and sea-sores, nuzzled by seething billows.
With contempt I shrug the Republic from my shoulders, polluted garment, and don a mantle of blue sea air. Brown sand crabs scurry, greet me as liberator. “To every drunken sod who sails with me, I say: Death won’t purchase your soul for a cracked tester.” Surprised shore birds answer, wheeling.
6/2/2014
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