Have I Killed The Greek, Eventually? Poem by Joseph S. Josephides

I have never stood the Greeks. I hated them,
I found their spirit below any stone I used to raise,
we as monkeys imitate them, the teachers said.
When soldier I saw Archimedes and got angry,
I grasped his head and kicked it, though was wise
since it had Euclid and Eratosthenes as teachers
in Alexandria, also mathematician Conon in Samos.
Miserable! He used science to humiliate us, Romans,
with cannons, ballistic machines, grabbed our vessels
lifted them on the air with pulleys, hoists, sprockets,
set them on a big fire using from afar his sun-mirrors,
to save Syracuse, the Greek culture, as he used to say.

I’m afflicted for the success of the Greeks. He measured
solstices, diameter of the sun, planets, arcs, could square
curves, can assess how much weight I lose in the water.
So I tell you, I hate the Greeks cause they cancelled me,
I become a mad beast that doesn’t tolerate its tamers,
opening scrolls I see all words in Greek, plenty as sand,
(now, my kids learn Greek, so they can become wise) .

Have I eventually killed Archimedes the Greek? Not before
Ι exterminate number π; but it escapes, is jumping fences,
enters the wave, leaves it, rolls in grooves of mind, passes
through the arteries of heart, climbs on a huge wall, then
on a giant tree from where casts itself to Galaxies, as God.


© JosephJosephides