Myths and Legends

History's pages are littered with legends
They come from land and sea
Their feats achieved from the much maligned
Or fearless gallantry.

Sailors huddled together
Taking comfort from the fire
Reading Greek classics
And absorbing mythological tales -
Of Jason and The Argonauts
Plying different dimensions
Homeric proportions.
Camping beneath canvas -
The sails of their sailing ship
In a quiet cove of water
Beyond the reach of the gale.

A warrior chief watches from afar
As these pale spirits enter his realm.
He meant to save his people
By meeting with their charge
Only to meet a tragic fate
Far away from his sacred land.

Few of their names are here
Though a little seeking will reveal
Their mark has left its trace.
A solitary rock to Kunnanara Kuna -
A memorial in place.

Hesitantly a township grew
Around that gentle bay
Emerging into a brave new world
With nomenclature intact.
There is Medea Cove
Along with Homer and Jason Streets
Argonaut can be found-
The sailors' stories and histories
Etched upon the landscape.

Myths and legends can blur and blind
One a tale of imagination
Explaining away the cause of our being
In a dreamtime beyond all knowing.
The other a thing to be read
Known and studied -
A collection of lives traditionally told
To further our own morality.

Me, I prefer another definition
Recounted by a modern Scottish bard
Legend is rumour plus time
That will do me fine.


Kym Matthews
6th February 2010

The Frivolous Cake

A freckled and frivolous cake there was
That sailed upon a pointless sea.
Or any lugubrious lake there was
In a manner emphatic and free.
How jointlessly, and how jointlessly
The frivolous cake sailed by
On the waves of the ocean that pointlessly
Threw fish to the lilac sky.

Oh, plenty and plenty of hake there was
Of a glory beyond compare.
And every conceivable make there was
Was tossed through the lilac air.

Up the smooth billows and over the crests
Of the cumbersome combers flew
The frivolous cake with a knife in the wake
Of herself and her curranty crew.
Like a swordfish grim it would bounce and skim
(This dinner knife fierce and blue)
And the frivolous cake was filled to the brim
With the fun of her curranty crew.

Oh, plenty and plenty of hake there was
Of a glory beyond compare -
And every conceivable make there was
Was tossed through the lilac air.

Around the shores of the Elegant Isles
Where the cat-fish bask and purr
And lick their paws with adhesive smiles
And wriggle their fins of fur.
They fly and fly 'neath the lilac sky -
The frivolous cake, and the knife
Who winketh his glamorous indigo eye
In the wake of his future wife.

The crumbs blow free down the pointless sea
To the beat of a cakey heart
And the sensitive steel of the knife can feel
That love is a race apart
In the speed of the lingering light are blown
The crumbs to the hake above
And the tropical air vibrates to the drone
Of a cake in the throes of love.


Mervyn Peake.