Listen Up Pandora
Let me out, Pandora, let me out!
Okay, so all the troubles of the world
with a gleeful shout
have broken loose and claimed the street,
but listen Pandora (and come on out
from behind this box, I can hear you snivelling)
just check me out:
I have wings! I have feet that can dance!
I drive a fast car, play cards like a pro,
I’m your pal, Pandora, let me out!
© John Stevens 2014
Just a bit of nonsense that started life as a contribution to a family game.
To read more about the ancient Greek myth of Pandora’s Box and Hope, try:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora%27s_box
or better still:
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/grecoromanmyth1/a/050410Pandora_and_her_box_or_pithos.htm
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I hope she lets you out! 🙂
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By: Ina on 29 June, 2014
at 14:23
I think she will! 😀
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By: John Stevens on 29 June, 2014
at 18:04
You know I love riffs on mythic scenes, and this one is great fun, like a teaser on a book, actually. I want to read more, John!
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By: elainestirling on 29 June, 2014
at 15:22
Ah thanks Elaine … try Cynthia Jobin’s instalment below!
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By: John Stevens on 29 June, 2014
at 18:06
Oh dear Elpis,
It’s no use.
I’m already in too much trouble.
I would spare you from harsh reality.
Otherwise, your wings might melt (like Icky’s),
Your fast car could crash into a kyparissos,
You certainly will eventually lose your chiton at cards.
Stay right where you are:
Cherished for your perfect possibility.
Thousands of years from now
You will still live, in a poem by a lady named Emily:
“Hope is the thing with feathers–
That perches in the soul–
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops –at all.”
Your pal, (sniff, sniff)
Pandora
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By: Cynthia Jobin on 29 June, 2014
at 17:22
Aw come on Pal – gimme a break –
These woes have too much clout –
And I don’t like the sound – of this Emily chick –
Do you think she ever went out?
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By: John Stevens on 29 June, 2014
at 18:44
Her life stood–a loaded gun–
The “falling sickness”, and a gift for poetry–
Dangerous in a woman of her time–
She kept to her own soul’s society.
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By: Cynthia Jobin on 29 June, 2014
at 19:48
I’d better drop the comic mask of my imagined character, Hope. ED deserves better, doesn’t she, and you pay her a proper tribute Cynthia.
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By: John Stevens on 29 June, 2014
at 21:50
I love this, John. It’s the fun of blogging. And you’re right about E.D. I was prepared to tell Elpis who would be, by now, understandably, hitting the juice, that all of this, in the end, is the fault of Zeus!
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By: Cynthia Jobin on 29 June, 2014
at 22:04
Yes, true!
🙂
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By: John Stevens on 29 June, 2014
at 22:16
Please resume your comic mask..it has so much potential!
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By: Cynthia Jobin on 29 June, 2014
at 22:40
……….
of her is the deadly race and tribe of women who
live amongst mortal men to their great trouble…… 😉
An invention by men ?
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By: lorianapauli on 1 July, 2014
at 17:16
Only too likely I’m afraid. But I can’t be absolutely certain as I wasn’t around! 🙂
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By: John Stevens on 1 July, 2014
at 18:04
😉
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By: lorianapauli on 1 July, 2014
at 19:03
I must say reading the exchange between yourself and Cynthia provided me with as much optimism for the future as the wonderful poem that spawned it, John. Thank you, both.
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By: Brad on 3 July, 2014
at 09:09
Thanks a lot Brad!
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By: John Stevens on 3 July, 2014
at 17:50
This was a delightful poem. It seems to me there are two “evils” that need to come out, one from inside and one from outside the box. I enjoyed this very much.
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By: Anna Mark on 7 July, 2014
at 00:28
IS there an assumption that Pandora is a woman?
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By: catawbaman on 12 July, 2014
at 14:29
Good point. Not in my verse I hope although I suppose traditionally Pandora, like Eve, was cast in the role of scapegoat.
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By: John Stevens on 12 July, 2014
at 21:01