Pergamon

from New Chapters, Eastern Europe 1990 by John Bennett and John Laidler

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lyrics

The museum on Spree grips the Pergamon altar,
that remarkable frieze sliced in deep relief,
the gods fight animal-men giants masked in pain.

It was a violent conflict between culture and nature.
Zeus defeated the children of Gaia, his spoils
embraced patriarchy, technology and war.

Students chatter on the stairs. During the war it lived
in an air raid shelter near the zoo. The Russians
snatched it as booty then returned it to East Germany.

I remember the terraced hillsides and scrubby
flanks sprayed with grey-green olive trees,
drawing on neural networks that sew landscapes

from overlapping decals – Mycenae morphs
to Troy, Ephesus and reconstructs Delphi.
The steep slope has cast an amphitheatre,

buzzards circled the Acropolis eyeing
a blue rock thrush and goldfinch or two,
grasshoppers clattered through the dry grasses.

The richest, most beautiful, most cultured Greek city
acquired a library to rival Alexandria’s and the services
of Dr. Galen who tended to the gladiators.

Back in 75, in the Temple of Zeus, our young guide
earnestly appealed: ‘the treasures belong HERE
beneath THIS SKY’ - I’ve not forgotten his euphoric blue.

The ‘treasures’ were gifted by the Macedonian general,
Lysimachus, ruler of Thrace and companion to Alexander,
megalomaniac looter of Turkey, Egypt, Afghanistan,

Persia, India and who destroyed golden Thebes,
every structure except for temples and Pindar’s house,
so crazy, his name still scares naughty children in central Asia.

I discover that Carl Humann was anxious to excavate
the site because locals were quarrying the stone
for building materials and burning the marble for lime.