Ancient Greece; Greek: Ελλάς, translit. Ellas; was a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of antiquity (c. AD 600).
Immediately following this period began
          the Early Middle Ages & the Byzantine era;
Roughly three centuries after the Late Bronze Age
collapse of Mycenaean Greece,              Greek urban poleis began
to form in the 8th century BC,        ushering in the Archaic period
& colonization of the Mediterranean Basin.
                     This was followed by            |          Classical Greece;
an era that began w/ the Greco-Persian Wars, lasting
from the 5th to 4th centuries BC.                   Due to the conquests
by Alexander the Great of Macedonia,                    Hellenistic
civilization flourished from Central Asia to the western end
of the Mediterranean Sea; The Hellenistic period coming to an end
w/ the conquests & annexations of the eastern
          Mediterranean by the Roman Republic,
                  first          establishing the Roman province of Macedonia
in Roman Greece, & the later province of Achaea during the Roman Empire;                              Hell, in many religious & folkloric traditions,
is a place of torment & punishment in the afterlife;
                         Religions w/ a linear divine history
                   often depict several hell[s] as eternal resort-like destinations
         analogous
             to exile
         while religions w/ a cyclic history often depict hell
                    as an intermediary layover between fantastical incarnations;
        Typically these traditions locate hell in one or another
                    dimension, or even under the Earth's surface &
often include entrances & exits to & from Hell from the land of the living sky above [many mortal men are known to have traveled to the underworld or consorted w/ devils & demons so-called: Orpheus, Jesus, Faust, Robert Johnson & Aleister Crowley:               Other afterlife destinations include
Heaven, Purgatory, Paradise, & Limbo;
Other traditions,     which do not conceive of the afterlife
as a place of punishment or reward, merely describe Hell
as an abode of the dead, the grave, a neutral place
located under the surface of Earth, for example Sheol & Hades [my old, old neighborhood]; In Greek mythology, Helen of Troy; Greek: Ἑλένη, Helénē, pronounced [helénɛː],               also known as Helen of Sparta,
or simply Helen,                       was said to have been
                                          the most beautiful woman in the world,
who was married to King Menelaus of Sparta,
but was abducted by Prince,       Paris of Troy,    resulting in the Trojan War
  when the Achaeans set out to reclaim her & bring her back to Sparta;
                She was believed to have been the daughter of Zeus & Leda,
     & was the sister of Clytemnestra, Castor and Polydeuces;
Leda & the Swan is a luridly pornographic story involving *******
                   & rarely depicted artistic subject from Greek mythology
in which the god Zeus, in the form of a swan, seduces Leda;   Leda thus bearing Helen & Polydeuces, enchanted godling offspring of Zeus
[thus
                                     Helen was a demigod
              like Orpheus, Heracles, Achilles & Dionysus, fulfilling the rank &
                                    status  of the Biblical Nephilim  /ˈnɛfɪˌlɪm/ (Hebrew: נְפִילִים‬, nefilim) the offspring
of the "sons of God" & the "daughters of men"                before the Deluge, according to Genesis 6:1–4:
A similar or identical biblical Hebrew term,
read as "Nephilim" by some scholars, or as the word "fallen"
                                                         appears in Ezekiel 32:27:
                      When people began to multiply from the face of the ground,
                      rolled into shape & being by the first insects,
     an army of scarabs doing
     clean-up after creation                                 before the invention of ants
                                   to maintain order on the most basic level of newly mined nature & once the creatures made of dung molded in the moist crevices of the earth into the shape best suited to them
      copying the mandrake so to claw their way out of the soupy ionized  
                                                       ­     electrified    mud;
some w/ female bits formed by hatchling sea anemone,
jellyfish & globular secreting sacks,            while some only a stick &
             two rocks hanging in a thin leathery pouch, looking like eggs,
             but Surprise!    [men continuing to be surprised to this day]
                          growing upright & naked,
               sloughing of their insect overlords while taking up insects ways of farming & irrigation,  taking hundreds of centuries
to build the towering hives of their ancestral youth
when the ants & bees & lone beetles taught them how,        the squadrons of
                 butterflies never shared their ability to transform from
                    a segmented crawling garden slug
                  to the highest form of flying insect               regaled majestically
in
the            colorful royal emblems of their tribes]
        & daughters were born to them, the Sons of God seeing that they were fair & took wives for themselves of all that they chose;
Then the Lord said, "My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever,
for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred twenty years."
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—& also afterward—
when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans,
who bore children to them; These were the heroes that were of old,
                                              warriors of renown.
— Genesis 6:1–4,        [New Revised Standard Version]
The word is loosely translated as giants in some Bibles
& left noticably untranslated in others; The "Sons of God" interpreted
      to be fallen angels according to some classical Judaic explanations;
                      while at the same time Leda bore Castor & Clytemnestra,
      children of her mortal husband Tyndareus,                            
                                            the King of Sparta;
                       The Judgement of Paris the event that led to the
        Trojan War, & in slightly later versions to the founding of Rome

Simple    distractions.    The   ease
of subdued conversations.  We lie
to one  another  because we lie to
ourselves   first.  
                               These   exchanges —
what  really  is   the  hidden   meaning
behind these  overzealous accusations
and   forthcoming   of   presumptuous
acts?  
            What  is  truth  in  subtle subjection's
and    altruistic   annexations?   We   cannot
sleep at night. The most evolutionary of  all
humanly cycles—broken.  Are you broken?

I am.


© A. Leigh

Here comes the end of the age of decodance
Echoes in the Ruins
Wild Puppets pivot in twilight past halls, their strings pulled taut by unseen hands of broken time,
Greedy profit parasites plundering pockets as stock markets socketed, mad
rockets launched while prophets pocketed coins stamped with empires' faces, unholy graces.
Glutted glitz blinds the masses, tongues twisted in gilded speech,
systems listed, teetering, twisted wristwatches ticking in sync
with synaptic sickness, digits drift, dividends split,
creditors cryptic as cynics scripted, their lies dressed in logic,
synesthetic statistics swirling in pastiche politics,
post-truth polemics lacing the air like poisoned incense.

Pious polluters preach penitence, pockets pregnant with prosperity printed,
premonitions predicted in numbers and smoke,
parasitic pyramids plotted, their apex casting shadows on placated crowds.
Automation aggrandized, algorithms agonized, their ghosts humming
through banks baptized in blood, through blockchain baptized,
through barcodes branded on hands of the willing.
Black budgets bandied, corrupt clerics convulsing on camera,
echo chambers echoed, econometrics eclipsed,
technocrats tethered to theological terrors, to visions of progress rotting in its womb.

Terror tethered to territorial temperaments, territories torched,
treaties torn in backrooms where titans are tolerated.
Tabloids titillated, surveillance sanctioned, sanctuaries seized,
syndicates strengthened as stratospheres strangled,
markets metastasized, materiality maximized,
manufactured malice, mandated madness—
and history’s ulcer bursts, bleeding bronze and silicon.

Machiavellian ministers monitor mindscapes,
scaffolded screens scream, sanctioned streams scheme,
psychosomatic psychoanalysis packaged, sterilized,
synthetic saints rise and static surges,
stimuli strangling senses, societies spaghettified,
atrophied archetypes advertised aggressively—
manicured messiahs monopolized, meaning mechanized,
megacities metastasizing, paradise plagiarized,
systems sutured, civilization severing.

Resonance rescinded, residents resigned,
vigilance vaporized, virtue venerated vacantly,
sanctions smothering sovereignty, servitude sanctioned,
sanctified slaves sleep soundlessly, dreaming in debt.
Revolutions recycled, rebels recruited, insurgencies initiated,
empires evaporating, evolution emasculated,
economics engineered, fear fetishized, faith falsified.
Discontent documented, dynasties drowning,
democracies defrauded, elections extinguished,
emperors enthroned on thrones of static and silver.

A wheel turned, rusted, crushed under its own weight.

War woven into whispers, weapons wandering,
bullets baptized in iron hymns, blood banks burgeoning.
History hemorrhaging, heroes hijacked,
propaganda proliferating in pretexts and principles perverted,
pacifism punished, plutocrats paraded, prisoners politicized.
Armistices amputated, antagonists animated,
allies assassinated, annihilation anticipated—
annexations acknowledged as activists anesthetized.
Airstrikes applauded, anarchy advocated,
conquests crystallized, constitutions collapsed,
conglomerates consuming all that was once free.

This was written before, carved in clay, burned in papyrus,
passed from the tongues of ghosts to our ears, ignored.

Power perpetuates, puppeteers perform,
pawns positioned, playbooks practiced,
plans pivoted, parables plagiarized,
prayers punctured, prophets pacified,
policy petrified, purpose perished.
Prospects poisoned, posterity pillaged,
plagues politicized, past plundered,
future forfeited, fates fragmented,
fissures festering, frameworks failing.
Fraud familiarized, fortifications fracturing,
freedom fictionalized, force formalized,
franchises fabricated, fables fossilized.

Functionaries fuming, fantasies franchised,
fraternal fractures festering in silence,
facades fortified, follies festered,
futures famished, faith forfeited, factions fighting.
Fission festering, fire final
until nothing remains.

What is left? Only echoes in the ruins.

It is easy to deduce where
the concept for walls came
from in the Trump regime.

Any day now, new annexations
in Palestine, Gaza and Golan,
funded by the no ******* club.

The persecuted are pious, which
is why there are so many deniers
about the gallant six million.

The genocide'd Irish for example,
fought for what was theirs, but
no more, not like the nasal heads.