Notice

My apologies. A confluence of illness, some family issues, and the income tax deadline have made it impossible for me to complete a mythology write-up this week. I'll be back next Sunday; in the meantime, enjoy this invective against the notorious Heinrich Schliemann.

Dear Mr. Schliemann

My ire is too distant here

to reach a proper pitch.

I’ve only heard about your crimes

in textbooks, secondhand,

but since you razed the citadel

after three thousand years

and did what Greeks dared not to do,

I want to be incensed--

but you were dead a century

when I was born, your crimes

passed by me unavengeable

and perished out of time

and yet still smoking. Were I she

who “Priam’s Treasure” wore

(or her real-life counterpart)

I think I could not be

more angry than I am. And yet

it’s not commensurate

and can’t be, ever, in my life,

I’ve been thwarted by fate:

so she three thousand years too soon,

so I one hundred late.