Rembrandt van Rijn, The Abduction of
Ganymede (1635)
Ganymede
When the nomad’s gonads came under scrutiny
Ganymede’s gametes were also examined
Sexting was considered as barely communicating
At least inside the chamber that was made of amber
Later the chamber was found in shambles
Resembling a daffodil-covered duck
The duck was a naïve conversationalist and something
of an alarmist
Equanimity was the
goal of all those sitting under a parasol
Rembrandt
liked to gallivant around Leiden
Where
Spinoza had also found enlightenment
The
two may have met walking along the banks of the Rijn
In
Leiden where the Rijn widens
Jupiter’s
moon Ganymede was discovered and so named by Galileo just 25
years
before Rembrandt painted the unwilling mythical boy being
kidnapped
by Zeus, who was Jupiter, who was the eagle.
Ganymede
was dragged to Mount Olympus, the heavens, to be in charge
of
moisture and rain and to be Zeus’s lover. In Rembrandt’s painting the
chubby
and clearly unhappy boy is seen with a long stream of urine
flowing
from his penis as he is carried off in the eagle’s grasp.
*
When the eagle and the nomad
Came along with the boy, their
gonads came along with them
Under certain pleasant conditions Ganymede
painted
painted
became enlightened
Considered sexting a naïve form of conversation
barely communicating
at least inside
inside the goal
of the chamber that was also a bar
later the duck named Amber
Later when Rome came to shambles
resembling a parasol
Resembling a bar
Daffodil-covered duck was
Covered duck the earth
Duck the duck the
Duck was made of
Naive conversation and discovered
Conversing
and discovered by
Something of urine just as an eagle, a beaver,
and a beagle walked into a
bar.
The
bar was not very far.
As
far as the eye could see there was matter. Stuff.
Incapsulated
in this matter, life found itself to exist—to be.
Inflating
existence to the sum total of reality.
Or
why should there be something instead of nothing?
Or
are we what we choose ourselves to be?
*
—Anne
Tardos
