I am complete

I am not this crude, crass thing

This effigy of stuff

Carved out of your disappointment

Chiselled out, reckless and rough

Un-living me, the Pygmalion chunk

Unrefined boulder to your lust

The unfinished masterpiece

Body-less, shapeless, marble bust

I am not this homunculus

Your golem etched out of clay

Your lies written on my tongue

An excuse to pave your way

I am not your junk
Rubble to hamper your cause

Baby thrown out with the bathwater

Blamed for your flaws

My love is a cherished thing

My heart hangs on the finest walls

Not petrified by your visage

I'm unmoved to all your calls

-o0o-

The story of Pygmalion occurs in Greek and Roman mythology, where the goldsmith and sculptor Pygmalion of Cyprus carved a sculpture of a woman out of ivory. Seeing the beauty of the statue, Pygmalion appealed to Venus to bring the statue to life for him. She did and Pygmalion and the statue married and had a son, Paphos, and in some stories also a daughter, Metharme.

Homunculus comes from the Latin, "little man" and originates in ancient preformationist philosophy. Preformationism believed that the entire human being is preformed, completely, as a baby within the sperm and that women are merely some sort of flower bed in which human beings are planted and did not contribute to the child apart from carrying it. This is often considered rather vulgar by feminists as well as being understood as nonsense by geneticists and scientists as a whole today. In alchemy (particularly with reference to the golem below, in rare cases and fringe alchemical writings) sperm was used to create inanimate objects come to life as the soul of the homunculus was said to possess creative power and had the capacity to imbibe objects with life and sentience. This process was often fraught with danger as only God is supposed to create life and this activity often came with risks and severe punishment.

The golem in this poem refers to two incidents. Firstly, from Psalm 139v16 in which golem (GLM rendered in the text as GLMI "my unrendered shape" / "my unformed stuffs" / "my frameless being" so-to-speak) means unshaped stuff or unformed substance. Personally, I've always found this 'substance' somewhat analogous to the mythology of the unshaped substance of chaos and the cosmic waters in most creation myths. The second reference is to the mythology of the created being in Jewish mythology, most notibly the golem of rabbi and achemist Judah Loew ben Bezalel of Prague (1520-1609) also known as the Maharal of Prague. Loew was said to have created a golem out of clay to protect the Jews of the Prague Ghetto from blood libel fuelled antisemitic attacks. Loew was said to have made the Golem in the same way that JHVH was said to have created Adam. The golem supposedly had the word "Truth" (Emet) written on its forehead, or on its tongue, or on a scroll or tablet placed within its mouth. The only way to destroy the creature was to remove the first letter, rendering the word "Met" or "dead". This process was reversible and the golem could be set upon their enemies at will.