Poem of the Day: “Typhon, a Prophecy” by James Frederick William Rowe, Poet of the Week

Songs of Eretz Poetry Review is pleased to present “Typhon, a Prophecy” by James Frederick William Rowe, Poet of the Week.  A biography of Mr. Rowe may be found here:  http://eretzsongs.blogspot.com/2015/02/poet-of-week-james-frederick-william.html.

Typhon, a Prophecy

James Frederick William Rowe

 

I see him

The thing of fear

The tyrant of old

His fingers latched upon the brim

Of the fiery mountain

His dungeon for the aeons

Where in chthonic thrall

He has long languished

In its magmic confines

But no more!

He rises from the lava

Streaming with rivulets of the same

And steaming with the heat of the Earth

Glowing as molten bronze

He stretches to the stars

The boiled clouds dissolve to steam

And the winds carry the heat

In cyclones of flame    

Stone will melt in his coming

And we shall drown

For his is the despotism

Against which struggle

Can broker no gains

He will reign

For Olympian Jove has long left us

No longer a usurper

But our natural king - lord over us all

We were godslayers

Arrogant in our deicide

We proclaimed: "Now ends the age of unreason

The Epoch of Belief!"

Faithless, we thought ourselves

Intrepid infidels, bold blasphemers

And now in bondage to

The ancient nemesis

We will weep

Poet’s Notes:  Zeus’ great, monstrous rival for the throne of heaven inspires “Typhon, a Prophecy.”  Specifically, I was inspired by the depiction of the Greek poet Nonnus http://www.theoi.com/Gigante/Typhoeus.html of how Typhon would have reigned over the Heaven in his triumph.

Typhon's monstrous lawlessness stood in contrast to the divine order of the Olympians, underscored by Typhon's birth directly from Gaia, or else from Hera via parthenogenesis. In either case, his female-only birth makes him something like a product of spiritual adultery, especially as he has not the descent of Zeus (from Uranus to Cronos) to justify his kingship, and Zeus had not won the justified scorn by refusing his role as father as Uranus and Cronos had done. Typhon is injustice personified, and the wild, elemental forces of creation upsetting the careful ordering of the Logos.

Typhon is the embodiment of our pride in thinking ourselves "above" the divine. Typhon thus to me represents the unchecked passions of an unrestricted humanity too proud to recognize the necessity for a virtuous restraint rooted in a recognition of a divine order.

Editor’s Note:  The allegory here is chilling, and the turn at the end is particularly well done.