Athena

Athena the Warrioress
Athena the Sorceress
Athena the Healeress
Athena the Priestess

Athena fights eternally for Light
Her Heart shines forever Bright
And for Eternity Athena will slay
Those who abuse sentient beings in any way

She is the One who fights for Eternity
Until all sentient beings become a Divinity

The Mysterious Goddess
There is a Unknown Goddess, shrouded in Mystery,
Her Temples; desecrated, destroyed since history,
Since time immemorial she has existed,
and somehow, whispers of Wisdom persisted.

The points She makes, mostly missed,
Knowledge She offers, widely dismissed,
For Her songs of virtue, and of beauty,
Are viewed as primitive, exposed so crudely.

Many sail to a far away place,
To see only followers, Legacy disgraced,
Whether be it the place; Her Sacred Books speak of:
An Imaginary Heaven or the Hell beneath us.

However She guards Wisdom like forged iron doors,
Her mind sharp like a Thousand Cleaving Sword,
Her Eyes penetrating like a piercing lance,
Yet when She see her followers, at glance...
The Universe shall sing in song and dance,
as if all for one;
and self in trance.

For darker days to come, many a day without Light or Sun,
Time, one evil and ignorant to strike war drum.
Brightly, unison, shall strike the final blow.
With the Sword of Wisdom, the Sword of Swords:
Better days for all,for evil, will lose, the final war.

Lady, they tell me not to see your face. Tell me
if I was not meant to see you, why does your smile
ride on the wind? Why would your laughter shine
in the pink flowers that creep along the front walk?

They find you in the grottoes of Lourdes, on the hills
of Fatima, and burned into the hallowed grilled cheese of Hollywood, Florida
but balk when I find you in the whisper of rain. They blanche
when I find you in the first heady sip of coffee at midnight.

Most holy event, where you show your visage in faded lights
to little Lucia or Bernadette – tell me, when did you lose
your ghostly form? Were you tired of the heavy robes
they dressed you in? Were you tired of the name Maria?
Were you happier as Arianrhod or Demeter, Sigyn or Xiwang Mu?

Do you wish we had never named you?

{i remember}

She comes to presence
in a great wave of grief
that has no bottom.

{water cannot swim}

Feeling the unbearable
weight of womanhood
tearing me open,
revealing my own sorrows.

{a channel of life}*

To be a gate of love and blood,
the flesh of desire,
bearer of all burdens,

was so traumatic I was reborn
in the body of a man.

Tonight we
Held hands
Like we did
On the Sabbath
Sunday noon

Tonight we
Dipped our feet
In the moon-lipped
Pool

Tonight we
Pressed our bodies together
Like the eclipse of the sun
And moon

Tonight we
Danced a thousand sonnets
To our pagan stone Gods

©Jack Aylward
15/1/13

I could show you such things as you never have seen
But I'd have to go back on my oath
An oath I never made, but which
Stuck with me, the most sacred of things
So sacrosanct that even to say the words of the oath itself
Would be to break it.
Rarely is holiness so raw
Yet when that place is found
When the moon descends
And the water rises
Something shifts: and the veil is slightly lifted
But only slightly, for
Personne ne peut enlever la voile d'Isis
Even if we know how
Especially if we know how
Yet sometimes, gods willing,
It thins itself slightly
But only slightly, and
We catch a glimpse of the way things really are:
The way things could be.

I've been at hundreds of funerals
Standing beside Fathers
Soon to be posted to Peru
Or to missions for black African babies.
They'd sprinkle caskets like Spring rains,
Burn incense to smudge the dead
With rising smoke signals.
Sounding the advance.
I witnessed pain in the front pews,
The kneelers with thin cushioning.
I prayed fervently for a whosh of wind
To sweep behind me,
Billow my soutane,
  And lift the lid;
Prayed for the candle flame to flare,
For the body to rise
As Rathgar did.
He was a faker.
Not like what I saw.
Up close.
On Friday mornings.