Nelly was an elephant
But in the end
There were at least two narrators
In stories from Africa’s Legba and Esu
To Choronozon in Gaiman’s Sandman.
And so it goes
whether we talked Icarus
Or Bellerophon, we knew
Nemesis’ nemesis was Hubris
Not the Trickster,
Hel’s sometimes sister
Or at least so the Blacksmith’s say.
For after all it was Daedalus
The Artful contriver
Icarus’s father who whispered in the ear
of Theseus, master of language
After learning the mistake he made with his own son
When in the labyrinth…
Do not do what anyone demands of you
Do not believe anyone
And whatever you do
Do not do what you are told.
But he then left one more tale.
A conundrum of Kantian proportions
A second critique of pure reason.
If we are duty bound to tell the truth.
And if…
Satan is a sadist
And God forgives.
Who was it who bound us?
Ask Loki sometime,
In between drips of serpent poison.
and with such agony
Bernini’s St Theresa
groaned in ecstacy,
As the demon murmur
Came with increasing complexity
Still if this is the reason
I am going to hell
And as someone once sung
“If there’s a hell below
We’re all going to go”
And if Jesus died for our sins
As St John of the Brethren
Of the Free Spirit suggested
If we don’t sin,
We are letting the man down
When Hitler compared decadent art
To that thought worthy of the Uber-Mensch
So did the fallible mortals
Go in droves to see what the decadence was all about
So hey, like the Song Thrush
Let’s do it with such stylings
It will never be sung again
Like Great Grandfather
Or whomever was buried under that mound
Who’s name was forgotten
If he ever had one
But worshipped nonetheless,
Whispered about Nanna Nelly
The elephant
Who packed her trunk
And said goodbye
To the circus lions
And their venal pride
