Epics and Empires

Epics and Empires Empires and Epics – Life's like a poem Ever read it? It's epic Sometimes a poem Defines a whole epoch – Epics and Empires Empires and Epics You ever heard a tale and said, Mmm, that was epic – Mmm, what an ending – Mmm, how they said it – Spread it on Reddit, make sure everybody gets it – It's perennially relevant, it's everything – epic! ... But what's an 'epic'? – It's from an Ancient Greek Word, epos — a form of oral-poetical speech Made to tell us of our origin and history — the deeds Of the deathless gods, and of us human beings ...But what's that got to do with you and me? ...What's the price of rent and booze got to do with Hercules? Well you see, embedded in the epics of the Ancients Are the fate of Empires, and entire civilizations For woven in the lines Of the poets that speak Are the intricate designs Of the powers that be – As they rise and decline And redefine their defeats You gotta read between the lines For your mind to be free Epics and Empires Empires and Epics – ...Who wrote it? Who said it? ...Who commissioned it? Who read it? Epics and Empires Empires and Epics – The myths of the past Spin the facts of the present You ever read the Epic of Gilgamesh? The King of Uruk, who built it up, and oppressed His own people, good and evil — an ambiguous look The OG antihero of the earliest book But its influence spread like the catchiest hook Beyond Babylon, catching on in every nook – And if you read your other epics from the region then you're liable There to find it in the Iliad, and even in the Bible It's an epic! ... Did I read this right? David slayed the Jebusites – Swift Achilles needs his prize – Everything I seize is mine! ...I'm a king – endowed by my author With a right to kill, and a will to conquer When in Rome – or wherever – read Vergil A Roman epic poet who earned an eternal Renown in expounding the name and reputation Of his emperor and patron on an epic foundation The Greeks sacked Troy Venus said, 'Ahoy We need to save Aeneas Cuz he's my boy – From his seed in Italy Will spring a mighty nation...' (The guy for whom he's writing this Will be its culmination) The gods are on our side, there ain't no discussion – Empire or bust, in the name of Augustus Poeticize the present as a prophecy fulfilled And establish what just is as justice — "gods' will" Rome fell but its myths remain In any empire's claim it's divinely ordained — And like any epic strain, it entwines its refrain With the disparate traditions of the places that it came — And so the fame of a Beowulf is made in the slaying Of an enemy named as a descendent of Cain — It's a pagan epic that hangin' in an Abrahamic frame — An Old English Gilgamesh — it's different but the same It's a feedback chain Of re-interpretations Of the classical past And amassed information As empires clash In the path that their destined By the maps of their myths Until they crash — epic! Epics and Empires Empires and Epics – ...Can you repeat the past for me, please? I didn't get it Epics and Empires Empires and Epics – ...If you don't know the future yet It's 'cause you haven't read it — If you want to understand the past You can't just scan it fast and quote the quote "facts" – You have to hold the glass to how the Truth is performed In the forging of Myth — for you've been Myth-informed And we who are born in the age of the paperless Maybe yet feel the rage of Achilles retraced in us As we're placed in the cage of our hatreds with raised looks Of crazed indignation, when we're shaming on Facebook ...Can we be shook from the mythic machine That emits it's mythemes from ubiquitous screens And convinces us to lean in to its intricate dream Of its empire's privatized, commodified being? Be the gods on our side, or God but inside us Personified Mind, from the writer's divine bust – From Homer, to Rome, or to the Rapper beyond us – Let our epic authors be radically honest – And let our next myths, in our posts and our comments And in our politics be constantly conscious Of what's come before — and begin our poetics With Sing, Muse, peace — that would be epic Epics and Empires Empires and Epics – You're living in a poem – Ever read it? It's epic Epics and Empires Empires and Epics – The myths of the past Spin the facts of the present