Interview With A Goddess
by and published in Edition One of Pomegranate
Strife
whose wrath is relentless,
the sister and companion of murderous Ares,
only a little thing at the first,
but she grows until she strides on the earth
with her head striking heaven – Iliad IV
We’re mostly gone, these days. A few are left –
Apollo just went corporate and rebranded,
he’s doing very well now. Well, why not?
Sun-god, god’s son, it’s six and half a dozen:
all light in winter, birth and sacrifice.
Salvation sells. Oh, me? I’m indie still,
as ever: I get by: I’ve got a cult –
Discordians – post-modernistic bunch,
quite baffling, the lot of them. Their sign?
That apple – thank you, yes, you’re right, it’s true,
my finest hour, that – but they all spell
the word ‘kallisti’: frankly, bastardised,
if you ask me. An apple, anyway!
I’ll never know what made me think of that.
The Abrahamic school did some nice work
with apples, but they settled on a cross,
easy to draw and memorable. I made
an error there – I backed the Romans – well –
don’t laugh at me, I know, and anyway
I changed my tune in time for the Crusades.
Old Eris always muddles through. But you
were asking about apples, weren’t you? Ah,
those were the days! My dear, those goddesses
were wonderful material to work with –
sex, wisdom, war and womanhood all tossed
together. Make’em choose! That’s what I say.
The fun starts happening once people choose.
But this is old news: are you sure you don’t
want something recent? I can give you Gulf
or going back a few, old Vietnam –
Korea? Germany? Sure, let me just
pull up my spreadsheets. Yes, we’ve modernised.
I like computers, it’s all binary:
Yes/no, one/oh, and let me tell you this:
humanity’s one big two-party system,
left/right, black/white, boy/girl – you made me this,
the slash between the lot of you. It’s tough
but someone’s got to do it – you agree?
How kind of you to say so! You know what,
I like you, dear. I think we’ve things in common.
There’s some excitement planned – I’ll tell you where
and when, and whom – and all I’ll ask of you
is: Give the info to the most deserving.
Got that? Most deserving. Put it in
your paper, won’t you? Make the people choose.
It’s just no fun unless you let them choose.
Emily Tesh
Emily Tesh is first mate to Char’s captain and the oldest member of the team. As befits someone of such advanced years, she likes very old poetry e.g. Ovid, Catullus, Sappho and Homer, although she has been known to read poems written as recently as 1963. She therefore had no choice but to study Classics, which she is doing at Trinity College, Cambridge. Emily is a Londoner and her poetry has been published in Mimesis and Magma. She also designed the Pomegranate logo.