Indeed, many cosmogonies do agree:
....cataclysmic was the error of
........bestowing intelligence to man
who alchemically transformed
....this gold to leaden ignorance.
........Just as well bestow a Stradivarius
to his brother, gorilla, and watch him
....curiously rip off the gut strings,
........snap the bow and crush the delicate
box of laquered wood with equal gusto
....as quantum physicists curiously
........smashing an atom and her crew to pieces.
For this transgression Prometheus
....( who in vain would be our benefactor )
........was harnessed to the crag of his agony.
Yes, he paid a high price for befriending man
....in defiance of Zeus, who is intent on
........our destruction, and, it appears,
he shall have his way. Yet, the crime
....of squandering sacred fire on unworthies
........was committed in compassion and trust.
With compassion and trust I too listened
....as the citied man related his misfortune:
........“Excuse me sir... a moment of your time?
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Bit of bad luck on a fishing trip.
....You see, my wallet fell into Big Bear Lake
........and now I can’t get back to Los Angeles.
Six dollars worth of gas will get me there.
....Could you... can you... uhm... please be so kind?
........I’ll send it to you as soon as I’m home.”
Is there a more gullible fool than an artist?
....I told him no, six dollars is a lot to me.
........Again he pleaded – O woe! – what shall he do?
Shall I trust humanity yet again?
....I’ll make it a game – yes, I will gamble
........and bet six dollars on the human race!
My wife, sweet girl, thought me a fool
....as the man gushed “God bless you sir!”
........and bade me write down my address
so he could promptly repay the loan.
CHORUS OF ANXIETIES:
....What’s six dollars bet on wayward humans
........hoodwinking their way to doom,
when Prometheus bet the sacred fire?
....Reproached for respecting too highly
........the race of mortals, his kindness was that
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of an older brother to a mentally retarded
....sibling, falsely thinking him capable
........of self–mastery, totally blind to
the harsh degree of his retardation.
CHORUS OF MISGIVINGS:
....And so the rebel Titan sowed in human hearts
........blind hope, inability to foresee death, and
– to these witless children – the sacred fire!
....They now use it to zealously build their
........Atomic Age Tower of Babel, evilly seeding
the millennia ahead with grim forebodings –
....had we millennia left to us, that is.
........The shadows of clouds, the shards of sunlight
are astonished to find nothing undefiled by man.
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Yes, reader, you know the story by now,
....how the Titan named Wise–Before–the–Event
........was by Hephaestos bound in bronze fetters
( and was by subtle Shelley later unbound ),
....how the eagle fed on his liver, how his agony
........lasted one thousand years for trusting man,
and how I have waited six years now
....for my lousy six bucks. Like the Titan bound
........I lost my bet and was titanically clowned... .
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