Thor, the Norse God of Thunder, had a hammer named Mjölnir. Mjölnir was considered a fierce weapon that could level mountains and summon lightning with every blow. In this poetry blog, every Thursday, (Thor’s Day), Mjölnir will forge only song - sing of the mysteries and beauties of the world.

Thursday, August 30, 2018

THE GOAT

Back in the day
there was a goat
who ate a few measly
grape leaves in the garden
of the gods, and boy
did those Olympians
make a fuss. So much so,
so the story goes,
that the Greeks had to kill  
the poor goat to make 
Apollo and the gang
quit all their whining.
Sacrifice became the name 
of game everytime 
the gods got offended
And, shazam! tragedy 
was born. No, really. 
The word tragedy comes from 
trage, which is Greek for—
yep, you guessed it—goat.
Who knew, right?

Later the Greeks wised up
after they started running low 
on goats: "We gotta find 
a better way to get the gods 
to chill…” And sure enough 
they did. They wrote plays
instead, in which heroes died
tragically but pretend-like.
That’s how they put
an end to all the killing
and scapegoating, as it were.

Boy, we humans sure take
the long way round
when it comes to saying
we’re sorry. No wonder we make
a theater of our lives.

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