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nathanology - epics and empires lyrics

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epics and empires

empires and epics –

life’s like a poem

ever read it? it’s epic

sometimes a poem

defines a whole epoch –
epics and empires

empires and epics

you ever heard a tale and said, mmm, that was epic –

mmm, what an ending – mmm, how they said it –

spread it on reddit, make sure everybody gets it –

it’s perennially relevant, it’s everything – epic!

… but what’s an ‘epic’? – it’s from an ancient greek

word, epos — a form of oral+poetical speech

madе to tell us of our origin and history — the deeds

of the dеathless gods, and of us human beings

…but what’s that got to do with you and me?

…what’s the price of rent and booze got to do with hercules?
well you see, embedded in the epics of the ancients

are the fate of empires, and entire civilizations

for woven in the lines

of the poets that speak

are the intricate designs

of the powers that be –

as they rise and decline

and redefine their defeats

you gotta read between the lines

for your mind to be free

epics and empires

empires and epics –
…who wrote it? who said it?

…who commissioned it? who read it?

epics and empires

empires and epics –

the myths of the past

spin the facts of the present

you ever read the epic of gilgamesh?

the king of uruk, who built it up, and oppressed

his own people, good and evil — an ambiguous look:

the og antihero of the earliest book

but its influence spread like the catchiest hook

beyond babylon, catching on in every nook –

and if you read your other epics from the region then you’re liable

there to find it in the iliad, and even in the bible

it’s an epic!

… did i read this right?

david slayed the jebusites –

swift achilles needs his prize –

everything i seize is mine!

…i’m a king – endowed by my author

with a right to k!ll, and a will to conquer

when in rome – or wherever – read vergil:

a roman epic poet who earned an eternal

renown in expounding the name and reputation

of his emperor and patron on an epic foundation:

the greeks sacked troy

venus said, ‘ahoy

we need to save aeneas

cuz he’s my boy –

from his seed in italy

will spring a mighty nation…’

(the guy for whom he’s writing this

will be its culmination)

the gods are on our side, there ain’t no discussion –

empire or bust, in the name of augustus:

poeticize the present as a prophecy fulfilled

and establish what just is as justice — “gods’ will”

rome fell but its myths remain

in any empire’s claim it’s divinely ordained —

and like any epic strain, it entwines its refrain

with the disparate traditions of the places that it came —

and so the fame of a beowulf is made in the slaying

of an enemy named as a descendent of cain —

it’s a pagan epic that hangin’ in an abrahamic frame —

an old english gilgamesh — it’s different but the same

it’s a feedback chain

of re+interpretations

of the classical past

and amassed information

as empires clash

in the path that their destined

by the maps of their myths

until they crash — epic!

epics and empires

empires and epics –

…can you repeat the past for me, please?

i didn’t get it

epics and empires

empires and epics –

…if you don’t know the future yet

it’s ‘cause you haven’t read it

— if you want to understand the past

you can’t just scan it fast and quote the quote “facts” –

you have to hold the glass to how the truth is performed

in the forging of myth — for you’ve been myth+informed

and we who are born in the age of the paperless

maybe yet feel the rage of achilles retraced in us

as we’re placed in the cage of our hatreds with raised looks

of crazed indignation, when we’re shaming on facebook

…can we be shook from the mythic machine

that emits it’s mythemes from ubiquitous screens

and convinces us to lean in to its intricate dream

of its empire’s privatized, commodified being?

be the gods on our side, or god but inside us

personified mind, from the writer’s divine bust –

from homer, to rome, or to the rapper beyond us –

let our epic authors be radically honest –

and let our next myths, in our posts and our comments

and in our politics be constantly conscious

of what’s come before — and begin our poetics

with sing, muse, peace — that would be epic

epics and empires

empires and epics –

you’re living in a poem –

ever read it?

it’s epic

epics and empires

empires and epics –

the myths of the past

spin the facts of the present

- nathanology lyrics

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