I’ve read the books, attended the lectures and watched the documentaries on TV so I understand what the ancient Egyptians were saying when the gave attributes of animals that they feared and loved to their Gods.
On the other hand when I’m am reading the books or run across pictures like the ones I’ve included below, I can hear this little voice that says- ” you know that sometimes what you see is exactly what you get”.
I like that little voice- it reminds me to not just look at the world around me, it reminds me to think about it too-the writer in me loves the heck out of that little voice.
amm
Title: Box for animal mummy surmounted by a cat, inscribed Period: Late Period–Ptolemaic Period Date: 664–30 B.C. Geography: From Egypt
Period: New Kingdom Dynasty: 18th Dynasty (ca. 1550–1295 BC) Place of discovery: Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut Deir el-Bahri Thebes, MMA (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) in 1928 Size: Height: 62 cm, width: 33 cm, Depth: 108cm Material: Painted Limestone
Statue of the Goddess Hathor with Amenhotep II Period: New Kingdom Dynasty: 18th Dynasty, Reigns of Thutmosis III (1479-1425 BC) – Amenhotep II (1425-1400 BC) Size: Height: 225 cm, Lenght: 227 cm Place of discovery: Deir el Bahari – Temple of Thutmosis III (Thebes West)
Fish Shaped Cosmetics container Place of discovery: Saqqara
This exercise posted here in part from: Mbarker exercise: FINISH THIS POEM
How would you complete this poem? (Aside from the obvious answer of “I wouldn’t complete it. It’s dribble!”) By the way, I did have a title for the poem as well, which I include with it, though there is not much insight into the poem from this title. So feel free to come up with your own title. Change it anyway you want. This is an exercise. Nothing more.
Yours, etc., Jackson
There on the cloistered balcony he sits, draped in a hairshirt robe with matching slippers, eyes blurred by the pillow primordial, by the visions of brown study, lips even now burning from the coals, potted as a sun-baked fern, feeling his thoughts through quill-calloused hands.
This statue depicts Saint Bartholomew, an early Christian martyr who was ALLEGEDLY skinned alive. If you look closely, you’ll notice that’s not a robe that he’s holding. It’s actually his dissected skin hanging around him. This statute is by Marco d’Agrate, c.1562.
My response:
There on the cloistered balcony he stands
draped in a robe falling gracefully above his uncovered hands
eyes unshuttered by a small dull blade,
lips forever burning from unsent screams
his nightmare captured forever in marble and stone