WHAT'S SO GREAT ABOUT ALEX?
Early on,
Alexander of Macedon
Was tutored by Aristotle
And developed a management model.
Thus, he made a decision
That he favored Pan-Hellenism,
As long as HE was the one in charge.
He made his army large
And took first place
By beating the tar out of Thrace,
By sending every Illyrian
Into delirium,
And then by sacking Thebes
(For which today nobody grieves).
But wanting an even bigger backyard, you see,
Alexander kept practicing "diplomacy."
"Diplomacy" is just another word for extortion,
When you yourself have a greater proportion
Of soldiers and weapons for making incursions
Than do the Persians.
Alexander ruled the world from ocean to ocean
And carved his name in large italics:
You kind of get the notion
That this was one smart Alex.
GREEK TO ME
Outside the Trojan gate, they say,
-- The gate that faces south --
Stood a wooden horse one day.
But no one looked that gift horse in the mouth.
(Why should the kith and kin have been that logical
If everyone was mythological?)
The Trojan horse had been infested
Inside its beams of wood
For weeks
With young Greeks,
So Troy was divested
Of its teeming goods
By means of this hostile takeover.
Meanwhile, Helen of Troy
Acted coy
And had a cosmetic makeover.
This myth is symbolic of rot in the midst
Of a house with termites built in...
Or of how a country hits the skids
When corruption comes from within.
The glory that was Greece's
Slowly fell to pieces.