A New Myth? Odysseus And The Siren Rewritten As A Text For Tasting. Poem by Richard Blanch

Or a Taste for Texting.
How modern technology and culture take the stress out of epic questions and the danger out of mutual ingestion.

The messages fly under a thumb, flexed
And practised. At each end, two who have seen
What could be and now play the game of - what next?
He, at peace and at ease over his meal, jeans

Stretched under the table, smiling, serene.
She, mysterious and eagerly full of hot zest
For a hungry meeting. She is the queen
Of keenness. She would be end of his quest

As he is of hers. Clear, she prefers young lean
Meat. Meanwhile, he chews, savours. He is at rest,
Amused, remembering the smell of the green
When her beauty shone over the dark. Dexterous

Wit teases, borne on the waves, on the crest
Of technology. But the myth has been
Turning. Which plays the tune? Hero, siren? Vexed
Question in these times. And what might ‘tempt’ mean?
Here are no ropes and no binding. Now it is sex
That sings out and waits while text quivers between,
Writing the play while the principals preen,
Writing the menu: bright urbane cuisine
Refined palates need- poised tastes, sly and clean
For tantalised appetites. No tired Hippocrene.
No threat, no tragedy here. Just life buffed to a sheen…..