The Autobiography of Chaos: In Poetry

By Philip Vincent Hermida

My book, The Autobiography of Chaos, begins with a description of the Greek mythological figures and then transforms them into modern-world social, political, and moral upheavalin which, like the ancient Greek tragedies, they (particularly the ancient greek chaos) meet with great difficulties.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524511876

Philip Vincent Hermida

Born in Teaneck, New Jersey, in 1958, the author spent his formative years in the nearby town of Wyckoff. He began writing poetry in college in 1977. Graduating from Cornell University, he attended medical school for one year. Later receiving a master’s degree in physics, he worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Mr. Hermida’s poetry, with touches from his life experiences, has been called erudite but accessible. You will find his work as enjoyable and fascinating.

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Copyright © 2016 by Philip Vincent Hermida.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 07/26/2016

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Contents

CHAPTER 1

Greek Mythology

Aphrodite

The Delphic Oracle

The Third Punic War

Psyche And Eros

Thermopylae

Hera And Zeus

Apollo At Delphi

Chaos And Gaea

Roman Mythology

Helen

Zeus

Hera

Apollo

Artemis

Hermes

Melissa

Pan

Clio

Chaos

Persephone And Hades

Eurydice And Orpheus

Gaea

Dionysus

Daphne And The Laurel Grove

Echo And Bellepheron

Scylla And Charbydis

The Muse

The Faithful Wife

The Pantheon

Chaos and Anarchy

Anarche

Pythia At Delphi

The High Priestess

The Library Of Mount Achaea

Pyrrhus And Deucalion

Aphrodite And Ares

Aphrodite And Hephaestus

Aphrodite And Zeus

Aphrodite And Chaos

Arachne And The Spider’s Web

The Three Fates

The Charities

The Gracae

The Sacred Rivers Of The Underworld

Midas And The Minotaur

Artemis And Aeaton

Marathon

CHAPTER 2

The Autobiography

Of Chaos

Introducing Chaos

I Chaos

A Respected Opinion

Chaos The Great

The Man With The Pure Soul

Chaos Walks The Earth

The Trial Of God Before Satan

The Battle Between Good And Evil

My Return From Reading Gael

The Last Honest Man

Chaos, Conclusive Remarks

CHAPTER 3

Ancient And Modern Philosophy

Existentialism,

Existence, And Metaphysics

Intellectualism

The Philosophies Of Plato

Philosophy On Philosophy

Democratism

Ancient Philosophy

Modern Philosophy

The Many Names Of Zeus

Sophism

The Fall Of Rome

The Dark Age

The Science Of Criticism

Hyperbole

The Reformation

Orwellianism

My Life As Chaos

Contemplative

Existentialist

Ode To The First Pond

Music From Heaven

The Philosophy Of Descartes

Pindar’s First Ode

Moral Rectitude

Elysian Fields

Transcendentalism

Demigods And Demagogues

Social Commentary

Saint Augustine

Religious Philosophy

The Old World Spirit

A Machiavellian Future

On Philosophy

The Modern Road

As The Spirit Moves Me

I Contemplate

Elegy

Elegy II

Elegy III

Vision

The Protagonist

Cynthia The Roman Moon Goddess

The Decay Of Modern Society

Foundations

Thoughts

The Grand Scheme Of Things

The Candle Burns

The Most Beautiful Girl

On Morality

The Golden Age

The Reality Of Today

Perspective

The Insidious Years

A Different Look

The Gods Are No More

Ancient History

Ancient Greek History

Ancient Egyptian History

Roman History

CHAPTER IV

Loved

Loved

Love Youth And Joy

A Fragile Love

Just A Love Song

Hitchhiking For Love

Dance The Twist

A Go-Go

I Got The Fire

The Sanctuary

The Sky

Rainbow

Heading Out

The Sky And The Cloud

Floating On A Cloud

Reaches

Life At A Glance

The Hunger

All Of My Love

Many Days

She Was Young

Beauty Attained

My Hopes And Dreams

Love Come And Gone

Blow Me A Kiss

A Moody Day

Facial Beauty

I Have Loved

The Sunny Day

The Angels Are Calling

The Bourgeois

I Gotta Make You Happy

Peaceful Scene

Here’s To Love

Falling In Love

Strolling

The Spirit Is Within

Innocence

The Heart Of Love

Waves Of Emotion

In My Heart

Let’s Rock And Roll

All The Years

Art

Rock Up Rock Down

Cleopatra The Real Story

God The Man

God In Human Form

Dome Of The Rock

God The Untold Story

Who Invented God

Peace Good Tidings Bring

Reminiscing On A Thought

Mother’s Day 2015

Dear Smiles

Egyptology

Frugality

Ambrosia

Crayfish

The Story

The Subtle Heart

One Night Alone With My Thoughts

Spring Sonnet

The Lord Works In Strange Ways

A New Day Dawns

The Last Great American Hero

The Greater Communicator

Love Is Sweet

Give Me Tranquility

To The Love

In Our Prayers

On Clarity

Epic Poetry

Prose

The Meaning Of Scripture

The Coming Of God

The Lord’s Prophecy

The Sugar Is Not As Sweet

Through All I Have Been

Ramblings

Chocolate Raspberry Layer Cake

In The Wee Hours

Her Touch Was Love

Religion Old And New

Golden Words

The Saved

On The Road To Perdition

The Transfiguration

CHAPTER 1

Greek Mythology

Aphrodite

Aphrodite never measured up to modern standards

More than elegant actresses

An elusive beauty seen understated

By the critic’s choice of words

Aphrodite married to Ares and Hephaestus

A polygamy that led to much mythology

And shennanniggins an old Irish spelling

That seems to have lost its meaning

But Greek beauty is the point of our story

They are Americans in today’s world of vainglory

The art of heroism is the writer’s acclaim

Kudos and accolades to Chaos, Hera, Zeus, Aphrodite,

And the others not necessarily in grammatical order

They shine through like a real life fairy tale

But when it comes to the Greek gods and goddesses

They too must face the harsh realities of the real world

Aphrodite and her deep passion wanted

To be the world’s greatest lover

Star-crossed star-gazer of an ancient origin

The modern Aphrodite out matched

By Anarche goddess of Anarchy

Became the equivalent of a legend

When her two lovers laid claim to her fortune

As all stories must end so do all legends

As Aphrodite proved not a goddess but mere mortal flesh

Unworthy of greater endorsement than here enunciated

Aphrodite’s downfall was typically human

Faithlessness and lack of charity

While violence seems to consume the earth

Mistreating disadvantaged saints

That once began to fall asunder

When Aphrodite loved Adonis in the Garden

A violation of the mores of Chaos’s word.

The Delphic Oracle

The Delphic Oracle

Had its day

Predicting all

The fall of Troy, of Rome, of Gaul

Odysseus screams you craven lout

The Trojan War it was a rout

With the horse that burnt Troy out

It built the system of today

With every Spartan stoic to the core

To the unpopular a closed door

The human barbarians pitted against Chaos

The ultra at peace and war

The dictatorship rather less than absolute

Ruled obsolete by the high god

Having been replaced by Odyssey law

In the original secret draw.

The Third Punic War

The Third Punic War is as much mythology

As any story from ancient history

The war was won by Scipio Africanus

Which greatly increased Rome’s commerce

The post Kingdom republicans

Were expanding the empire

Many politicians did aspire

Like Cicero and Cato isolationists

By Julius Caesar rebuked

Unlike the eventual historical change

Originally Caesar never died like the gods

Lives on to this day with memory-loss on the brain

In a small office of human accounting

Like Chaos immortal in a similar way

But not all knowing of knowledge complete

The assassination of Caesar begins in Shakespeare

Humans scientists contrive, cover-up the facts

To be polite and not impolitic

History becomes a loose trivia of lies

Bring back the Greek gods where nobody dies.

Psyche And Eros

Once upon a time

And a very long time ago it was

Psyche and Eros fell in love

In a secluded garden by the River Styx.

This is how it happened.

Eros was never told he was the god of Love

But so often was he given the eye

By the goddesses of Olympus

That he became wise

And began to avoid women

He walked the earth and flew without wings

As the magic tended to do

Then Hera cast a spell upon him

With a brew by Hecate and the witches

Just that day Psyche’s fiance passed away

Some say it was her husband

But she was never married in the original text

She fled to the secluded garden where she had never been

Eros saw her, the most beautiful of all mortal faces

And they immediately fell in love

Then for an age or maybe an eon

Eros would tell platonic stories of Olympus

To Psyche, finally as in all Greek stories

There is a tragedy

Eros tells Psyche he is a god

And must return to Olympus

This makes Psyche’s heart turn to stone

Then all of Psyche turns to stone

A beautiful statue like the Medusa

Makes out of clones.

Thermopylae

Null, devoid of form, empty

Aging on static

Frozen in time

Great Greek architecture decays

Where once Leonides and the magnificent seven hundred

Stood to defend Greek freedom against a force

Twelve times their size

Deep in the mists of history

Facts are replaced by legend

A relic, an esoteric afterthought

To the Persian Wars

An in depth study by Theuclydes

Tells much about ancient life

Of intrigue and espionage

And betrayal for money and power

A spy betrayed Athens

Slain by a once familiar hero

But not before he showed

The enemy a pass through the mountains

Little is known of the details

Replaced by modern frauds

That garner more credibility than ancient UFO’s.

Hera And Zeus

Life on Mount Olympus

Was not the great

Modern paradise

Would have to wait

Little food and no clothing

The scrolls far off in Alexandria

Little reading

Of words so interesting to amuse the gods

Talking was against the law

But they could remember what they wrote

Of religion and prophecy they could imagine

As I imagine this is all fantasy

Of God’s great plan for you and me

The Holy Ghost it seems has an appetite

To fight crimes of sin and immorality,

The author has said the gods were fact

And fiction a mixed bag of average

To advanced beautiful people

But the consummate intelligence

Is around here somewhere

What do expect Einsteinian Physics?

And higher calculus that Euclid knew

In the universal dream of immortality

Far too few.

Apollo At Delphi

The original authorship of Greek Mythology

A gargantuan work of immense lengthiness

Is attributed to the character Apollo

His appearance in modern circumstances brief

But memorable enough to attract the attention of Chaos

Apollo god of Prophecy was the high priest of Delphi

Although his ancient life was rapt in mystery

Never hinting at his chief prediction

The coming of the first god never received much attention

Most ancient deities suffered from memory-loss at the time

All this is revealed by the ancient version of lost texts

But who is to say the ancients’ greater clarity

Did not out marvel modern technology

Certainly new research has led to lower quality

Compared to the luxury of late last century

But not to date this poem other than to state

The terms of Apollo’s sooth could not be repeated

Polite poetry is not meant to retreat from the facts

But an artistic representation of humanities

As a beautiful person with a vision long since

Relegated to a sidelight in scholarly studies,

In today’s world of crass commercialism

Hardly anyone notices or discerns intellectual pursuits

Such as this aforementioned.

Chaos And Gaea

Chaos the cosmos begot Gaea the Earth goddess

Beautiful, tall, and strong with cloudless blue eyes

Blue as the sky and shining hair dark as night

Uranus, her husband, was a jealous god who cheated his way

Through life until the Holy Spirit caught

Him by surprise but this was never revealed publically

Modern history portrays Greek myths

As a long series of tragedies

But this is by far not the truth

The originals having been lost since ancient times

Are a drama, a demonstration of human emotion

Of piety and love, a perfect world of gods and goddesses

Worshipping Chaos who slept in heaven

When Chaos awoke from eternal death

He stormed the earth for food, peace and love

But the human barbarians made war on him,

The gods all proved human except for Chaos

Only he was made of finer stuff

The others bent on avarice, lust, and envy

The best we can say for Chaos and Gaea

Is they live on in classical literature

However the stories are changed by time

Examples of perfect people setting good examples

To sinners worse than themselves

But sinners never listen to God

Sinners are criminals and that is the moral of this story.

Roman Mythology

Jupiter, Juno, Venus, Mars, and Vulcan

Converts from Greek mythology

Try a new realm of existence

On Mount Olympus

The Roman Empire invented by almighty magic

Soon becomes embroiled in nepotism

And other opportunistic corruption

Jupiter and Juno languish in a deserted Olympus

As the gods and goddesses pose as mortals

Among Rome’s leading citizens

Patrician and Plebe

Senators, generals, consuls, and tribunes

Slave revolts of decadence and decay

Marr the final days of Rome

In short, the almighty magic made Rome rise

And the almighty magic made Rome fall,

Besides whoever heard of an empire without electricity?

Reality never really impressed the people

History is mythology in this case Roman

Coliseum and Circus Maximus games

Of outlandish violent corruption

In modern film making exaggerated Roman fiction

Roman dictators ruled dead, escape

So do Jupiter and Juno under different names, places, and dates.

Helen

The face that launched ten thousand ships

That ruled the seas of oars and Greeks

The beautiful hand of Aphrodite blessing Odysseus

Life began with Chaos in heaven

Above the stars where ghosts see far

Helen was beautiful as the wife of Menelaus

An arranged marriage for purposes of war

With Troy, Paris’s fare to kidnap Helen

For purposes of war with Greece born of one

Dynasty under Zeus to fit the Chaos lifestyle

Of seduction of wanton lust

But Helen was a homemaker

And Circe seduced Odysseus who refused her entreats.

After little bloodshed in single-combat warfare

A peace treaty was struck by Achilles

And Troy was burned to the ground,

Only Patrolacus and Hector died

The rest survived in Iliad and Odyssey

To conquer the world of Deity

The world of food, clothing, and housing

With a devil may care attitude

They pay attention to women like Helen

Glamorous without question

On the shores of the river Scamander

Where the remains of Troy still stand

Helen was loved by millions of adoring fans

Who saw her on a safe trip home to Sparta

Aeneas founded Rome with Romulus

And when the assassination took place

Helen received a new and modern name

A myth and legend of high society

Destined to remarry to a billionaire tycoon