Golden Calf
A misunderstood scenario
The Perfect Metal:
It was there [in solar ravishment
piqued over the tip of the mountain]
that we danced around
the golden calf.
We awaited law-books
to catalyze a golden age
at the foot of Mount Sinai:
worshiping in broad daylight.
They say that speech is silver, but
Silence is Gold. This all started
as a beat Meditation so
Daddy Moses, please
don't be angry with all us
wayward kids of Israel, blaming
this dance of whimsy
and delight in graven glint of brilliant gold,
round as crowns of kings.
All that golds is glitter and stardust, clouds
coagulated into chunks, the sacred ore.
Gold is born even
through earthquakes.
Mineral-rich waters are
pressure-cooked in
hairline fault-line fractures:
[EARTHSHAKEN]
This concept is a goldmine.
It's shiny and
It's rare/
So we seek to store it and adore it and
from it we decorate our magpie nest,
melt it down,
[we wayward Hebrew Hooligans]
who had the golden touch
in the burnished shadow
of Egypt's idols and Sumeria's cuneiform;
we who'd wandered far from
all her Grain, fasting, and
laden with sparkle of trinkets,
supposed to be a nest-egg
left in verses, reservation
for the golden years:
//: this time, not destined for minting nation's coin,
or as means of end to purchase,
but only in Adoration.
Nested in a heart of gold\
earth-extracted
solar is glitter
/soul\
a by-product of a Star's death
clogged with iron in the core reactor into
explosions of gold and silver
clouding clumped
nebulae of heavy metals
sought throughout the galaxy. Go for the gold!
(Supernovas scatter heavy metals such as gold and silver throughout the universe.)
Heaven and Earth
Come to One
in Gold
(bluest of heavens blackened incineration)
When it shines back the light
of the sun
Day by Day.
The halos of saints and angels
were colored in gold paint,
sheening orb and mandala;
therefore, our calf will not be forged of Fool's Gold
but of the true Material.
We have never possessed
Gold, but have carried it
with us along the way. It is something we have
seen in museums, and around
the collars and wrists
of attractive ladies.
Yet gold cannot be possessed/
even by museums.
Here it is: former currency free from its crucible;
Could have been money
in perpetual circulation.
There were necklaces and bangles to
encircle the necks and wrists
of the rich. But
instead we will melt it down
by power of fire and
forge
to form the molten mass
into a golden calf. [You could
almost hear its juvenile moo
as it chomps the tenderly
gilded grasses]. My cup runneth over.
We can buy nothing with it now.
The gold that formed this calf
is otherwise invested:
out of circulation and
useless to the world.
So very perfect now for dancing round and round
in animal raptures.
Oh Daddy Moses, do not
command,
along with High Priest Aron,
that we be slaughtered in the thousands
women and young included
for our gilded dance about this Calf
in such redounding merry roundels. Gold is madness, but
can translate star-shine into prophesy. Anyway,
It is not the idol that we worship
but the ray of sunshine
that it captures so well enraptured
as the sun goes forth
Day by Day
in mantic mantras.
Maybe in the future It will be
in a museum
behind glass
and will no longer be considered
IDOLATRY. Gold for gold's sake.
About the Creator
Rob Angeli
sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt
There are tears of things, and mortal objects touch the mind.
-Virgil Aeneid I.462
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Comments (15)
This is great. Love that ray of sunshine line. Well done.
Brilliant rumination of gold here! I really enjoyed how you pulled from the religious icons! I love how you made a comment on how we worship the ray of sunshine that reflects off the gold rather than the gold/deity itself - beautiful!
I love the style and overall feel of this! The way you wove such a delicate and intricate master piece is truly something to behold! Great work Rob!
This is absolutely incredible, Rob. The richness of the layers in this piece are just beyond. Every line holds so much weight, but this one jumped out: βIt is not the idol that we worship but the ray of sunshine that it captures so well enraptured as the sun goes forth Day by Dayβ π€― Amazing work! π«ππ½
Awesome! I love how you weave historical and cosmological data into your work! Your mention of the scene from the bible made me think of this scene from Mel Brooks' History of the World: https://youtu.be/YyMQCj8LvZw?si=vrmHNT4u-LlsTaO0
Loveeeee the depth in this and the storytelling that you wove into poetry!
Quite a lot of research obviously went into this creation, history, lore, facts and maybe fiction. Who knows for sure. Excerpts of the golden calf and Moses journey. Such a mix of stories around gold and interpretations of time. Fascinating and confounding.
Well, this was quite the epic and a stunning homage to someone I'll miss quite a bit! It's also just stunning in its own right, so well done for that, Rob! Your writing is always surprising, thought-provoking and brilliant!
This was a beautiful poem, Rob :) Daddy Moses cracked me up! And the reference to the magpie's nest was awesome! It reminds me of a song I heard ages ago, "take all the sparkly things that the magpie stole. Does it know that it will never fill, that deep and cavernous hole." A wonderful tribute :) I always enjoy reading your work and the pictures you sew throughout the piece are always such a treat!
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Nice and Great images πππ
Loved this -All of the allusions work wonderfully and add to the theme. Loved the dry wit. Last line is perfect! Brilliant!
Lol, I liked Daddy Moses. All that golds is glitter and stardust. I really liked that line. And the analogy of Magpie nest, that was brilliant! I loved your poem!
There are so many great things about your poem, that we could debate for hours. I felt as though I was reading an epic like Gilgamesh. Wonderful!
Honestly Daddy Moses is a vibe I loved this π
Your powerful combination of poetic imagery, well-researched fact, and supportive illustrations is genius.The message is complex/ I love 'daddy Moses' reference. fyi I find it fascinating that gold forms after earthquakes e.g. in New Zealand. Keep up with expressing your extraordinary insight!