The New Gods

I began writing back in high-school, some twenty-one years ago. (I’m sure many of you weren’t born yet. Don’t rub it in.) My junior and senior years I had a few works printed in McEachern High’s “The Laureate”—an annual literary magazine and then promptly forgot about writing completely. I suppose it was partly the idea of going to The Georgia Institute of Technology that banished writing from my mind. The intense study in highly technical areas didn’t seem compatible with subjective musings of a writer’s interests. Or perhaps I didn’t want to admit to being good at the subjective as well as the objective. At any rate, this time in my life had a profound influence on this poem.

Later in life while watching the movie Titan A.E., I was haunted by the narrator’s voice as he said, “Once in a great while mankind makes a discovery that will forever change history: fire, electricity, splitting the atom…” I thought of this as I pondered our own experience in splitting the atom. What makes these discoveries stand out as great? How do they shape our lives and our thoughts? Do we define the discovery? Does the discovery define us? Are all “great” discoveries surrounded by war, death, and cataclysm?

Finally, a wistful nostalgia for mysticism led me to ponder a poem—a poem both ancient and new. A poem seen in terms of gods: gods of war, gods of wisdom, gods of might and magic, gods doomed to die. But we are never without our gods! We forever hold up new ideals, new knowledge, new philosophies and worship at bronzed altars of modernity. And so the new gods take shape and wander among the thoughts of men even today.

A brief list of annotations:

1 Fat Man and Little Boy—the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively. Nuff said.

2 Huitzilopoctli—the Aztec god of war and the sun. He is a rather violent deity who was born into the world wearing his full armor and weapons. Upon being born he immediately began killing his brothers and sisters. A real friendly sort of chap. At any rate a sizeable portion of the sacrifices made at Aztec alters were made in his honor.

3 Ares—a Greek God of war. Not much of a thinker. More a "kill first and ask questions later" kind of war god.

4 Athena—goddess of war and wisdom. Probably most appropriately she should be referred to as the daughter of wisdom as her mother was the Goddess of Wisdom. Seeing as Zeus swallowed her mother to prevent Athena's birth, I guess she's the only wisdom left in Olympus. Strangely enough Athena was born anyway, bursting forth from Zeus' head wearing full battle regalia. She did not go about trying to kill her brothers and sisters.

5 Hephaestus—the misshapen smith of the gods. If was from Hephaestus' forge that Prometheus stole the fire he gave to man.

6 Prometheus—not a god at all but a Titan. He took pity on man and brought them the gift of fire. The fire is often interpreted as a gift of knowledge, setting man on a path of discovery. What was his punishment for giving man this gift? He was chained to a mountain where three harpies would tear out his liver every morning. Throughout the day he would heal, only to have the assault repeated on the next day. But the gods were not done. They gave man a gift also. They gave him a woman, Pandora. Pandora would release all the evils upon the world except hope. Hope stayed in the box.

7 Osiris—Egyptian god of life, death, and fertility. He made the Nile flood bringing prosperity to Egypt. Unfortunately Set didn't like him much and betrayed him scattering his body into seven pieces.

8 Isis—Egyptian god of the throne-mother. Wife and sister to Osiris. She was protector of the canopic jar of the liver. She recovered Osiris' seven pieces and brought him back to life as her son Horus.

9 Horus—the god of the sky. Originally the son of Hathor. (He changes quite a bit throughout Egyptian history.) Eventually he is seen as Osiris reborn and takes on an aspect of being the pharaoh reborn with Isis being the mother or wife of the pharaoh (depending on what dynasty you are looking at).


10 Magni—the son of Thor and the Norse god of Strength. He will survive Ragnarok. Thor—it's Thor for gods sake! The Norse god of thunder. Nuff said.

11 Jormungandr—the world serpent, the second son of Loki. Odin cast him into the sea and he eventually grew so large that he wrapped around the world and was able to bite his own tail. At Ragnarok Thor fights Jormungandr and slays him, then take nine steps and dies from Jormungandr's venom.

12 Ragnarok—the Norse Apocalypse. Just about everything dies except for Magni and one or two other gods.