No Faithful Penelope
© Surazeus
2026 08 16

Far removed from mundane concerns of life,
Emma floats in cloud of beautiful thoughts,
envisioning how people interact
with creative wisdom of selfless love
to help each other grow and thrive in joy,
though men drop bombs on the town where she lives.

Crouching low as she glides along brick walls
to avoid explosions of sharp debris,
Emma slips into the small grocery store
where she buys butter, flour, eggs, and milk,
then swipes her credit card with grateful grin,
and hurries home to bake bread for the week.

If time dissolves her happy memories,
Emma sits at the piano and plays
hymns her grandmother taught her how to play
long before the days of exploding bombs,
and sings as if this hour of strange despair
may be the last she sings with bitter joy.

Safe in lush garden of Hesperides,
Euterpe plays the lyre of Mercury
while Epicurus shows with diagrams
how things are formed from atoms in the void,
then she eats apple slice on toasted bread
and listens to drone of planes in the sky.

Painting people without faces or souls
in orthodox religious-icon style,
Emma hums and pets her frightened cat
as buildings shake from blasts of falling bombs,
then paints silver planes that blind angels fly
dropping bombs on cathedral of her faith.

When sly Petryshko arrives with warm beer,
that he swiped from unmanned gas station store,
Emma lounges with him on the back porch,
and asks if he will tell her once again
about his youthful trip to Pakistan
where he hiked the Hindu Kush mountain range.

Explosion from eyes of the laughing ghost
knocks both of them stunned on the thirsty grass,
so Emma cradles his head in her lap
and smiles through tears at how his silver eyes
gaze joyfully blank at Heaven of hope
where he plays chess with Gabriel in the park.

Since I am no faithful Penelope,
waiting in vain for my Odysseus
to return with wounded heart from noble war,
Emma whispers alone beside his grave,
I will not write your name on the wood cross
that marks where you lie in my secret heart.

surazeus.blogspot.com/2026/08/…

Orpheus visits Emma at her house in the suburb of Kyiv, bringing bags of cabbage and carrots, so she cooks stew while they talk about surrealist art.

#Poetry #Poem #Pastoral #Necropastoral #MetaModernism #Transrealism #NewSublimity #NewRomanticism #AmericanDream #Cinemism #Existentialism #Surrealism #NegativeCapability #NewGnosticism #MetaRealism #NewTranscendentalism #Astarism