SONNET ABOUT ORPHEUS 2
December 21, 2001 by
Stan Persky
Filed under Local Matters
Today no one cares
about the tongue of Orpheus
cut out by order of the tyrant
yesterday. And everyday
schoolchildren visit the museum
to gaze indifferently
upon the tongue of Orpheus
in a glass case. Allthat’slivingmemorytome
isbuttheendofhistory for the children
bow their heads
only to the little screens in their palms
"…class antagonisms pale
before the new division of people
into friends and enemies
of the word." Make your "Ode"
to the tyrant a real poem
When there is no way to speak
of the silence between stanzas,
about the spaces between words
Bangkok, Dec. 2001
"…their tongues were cut out and with the
stump that remained they were forced to
glorify the tyrant."
–Nadezhda Mandelstam
"I am learning from him to be merciless
to myself"
–Osip Mandelstam,
"Ode to Stalin"