I sat dreaming while sequences of clouds 

Hammered like pistons on a train’s thunderous

engine. All along, time infringed on

Hephaestus’s true desire to return home from

Twenty thousand

Years of smiting s-words for man’s desire to slice.

Hephaestus kept thinking,

“If the gods were built with too many talents,

men have mimicked them well.

 

“The mathematician thinks,

‘Why am I particularly good

With fractions? Is it because

I am only portion of a whole

That I know is there?

 

“and I wonder what kind of Person is

Exceptionally good with

Imaginary numbers.

 

“The English student says,

‘Does Tantalus’s opposite

Have so much he cannot get

Rid of it? Does his beer

Refill itself after every sip, so

That he is drunk beyond his will?

 

“When did Tantalus figure out

He didn’t have everything he

Wanted? Why was all he wanted

Water, and who the hell told him?”

 

The light shone upon the land so well, and

Hephaestus thought again, as he dazedly

Smithed, “The gods forgot to hide the infinitely

Small, but the men love it so, so, so much that

They continue to rage against the

Worst use of the clock, which has them

Dreaming and asking

Us for more and more Ideas to explore and fill the pages of their

Volumes dedicated to myself or Zeus, usually

Not Poseidon, and sometimes Venus for the Women”

 

“ I wonder when they’ll figure out that I too sit

Here and wonder where the last ten-thousand

years have gone, and why I’m never able to 

eave this damned spot of striking motion where

if I forget what I am doing for the length of a

link on a chain, think of a pasture in Elysium, or

the depths of the sea where my brother sleeps

soundly amongst the urchins, out of the way of

light if he wants to be, deep down

In his graveyard for whales, he is able to.

At that moment, I am done, forgotten, the forge

is besotted with Rosy buds and tinseled doves,

which no true Man would find attractable for battle. I’ll end up

Giving the swords to cupid again, or putting them in the pile of food for

the moon that has began to mound.

 

“I remember crafting woman to give men

something else to think about, but go and figure,

back to the gods their minds have roamed. If

only they knew what forever really was.

I hate that I am a god constantly living up to the

gods who will only live up to themselves.

 

“Anyway, I don’t really know how I feel about

Prometheus, because it wasn’t like I wanted

To make chains for him, but I haven’t really

Thought about why flames confused those tiny

Poets, nor why Zeus cared if they destroyed

themselves. One day they’ll have to give us up,

you know. Our impressions are wondrous, but

I’m tired. We’re all tired of being remembered.

And before we can die our last death, we need

to be forgotten, so let us rest. However, find

new subjects to fill your pleasures as

magnificently as we have. There need to be new

gods for a new age to tell the tale of those estranged.”

 

All Hephaestus thought lingered in the sky, as

The lightning struck and stuck again upon the

Swords he sledged as he felt tired of being

ignored: of being enslaved to his repetitive

hammering motion for ever and always, yet for

no real reason at all, and then, all of a sudden, the thunder ceased…