At the Santa Monica DMV; Troy; Ctimene
By: Noah B. Salamon
At the Santa Monica DMV
The woman ahead of me
cannot be 27. She
is not quite blonde
(the writing on her form is
elegant and looping, suggesting
whimsy) -- but
at the Santa Monica DMV
she conjures a favorite version
of her self
into the database
and all those polished selves
create a golden dream
sometimes, they even let you
retake the headshot
Troy
He first heard Homer
through wine-stained teeth --
beard still stained from supper
a drunk -- as he stocked shelves
in Brandenberg, before
he took ship
for Venezuela -- (he never
made it) -- sold gold
in California, and indigo
in Russia -- but never forgot
the intoxicated dactyls
And when he used his treasure
to dig for Priam’s, no one
believed he would find anything --
maybe some stray gold to smuggle --
But his wife wore
on her splendid brow
the jewels he thought Helen left behind
as she watched the towers burn
Ctimene
He -- only he -- backed away
from that charmed and charming home
peopled by those strange animals
who knelt and gnawed
but never growled
I was lonely then too
lonely as Penelope, lonely
as only a sister can be, how
I spent my days --
no one noticed
Honor is in my name, value --
but I am not the one they
sing about. Brother -- king
he took with him my husband --
mother followed too
I see them only
in glimpses of filtered light
on the backs of waves
Noah B. Salamon is the English Department Chair at Sierra Canyon School in Chatsworth, California. He received his MA in English from Loyola Marymount University. HIs chapbook A Series of Moments was recently published by Finishing Line Press, and his poetry has appeared in such journals as Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, The Stillwater Review, New Limestone Review, and HCE Review. His essay “The Transformative Effect of Color in the Poetry of Tomas Tranströmer” was published on the World Literature Today blog in 2014.
“At the Santa Monica DMV" speaks to that fabled California desire to reinvent the self. I thought about the collective effect of this desire. Why Santa Monica? Maybe because of the meter and timbre of the words “Santa Monica,” and maybe because of the role Santa Monica plays in the collective imagination as the beachy, sun-soaked, western terminus of LA. (It bears adding that this is poetry, not history, and not an endorsement of the character’s (possible) stretching of the truth.)
"Troy" is based on the story of Heinrich Schliemann, which I invite readers to discover for themselves. I have taken some poetic license -- I do not know, for example, if the miller Schliemann heard reciting Troy had a beard - I have imagined the scene. Schliemann thought he found Homer’s Troy, and he probably did, but the items he found dubbed “Priam’s Treasure,” (including “The Jewels of Helen”), some of which Schliemann’s wife wore in a famous photo, probably predate the Troy of Homer’s Iliad (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priam%27s_Treasure).
It was only after reading and teaching Homer’s Odyssey for years that I noticed the single mention of Odysseus’ sister, Ctimene, in Book XV. I thought she deserved a poem (or poems) of her own, even if it isn’t a full epic. There is much more to write, I think, about her story, which is barely alluded to at all in Homer’s work. I imagine her towards the end of the story, having lost her mother and her husband, who journeyed home from Troy with Odysseus. Her husband was the only one who hung back when the scouting party discovered Circe’s hut -- perhaps knowing this gives Ctimene some solace, even pride -- but he did not show similar caution later in the journey, and he did not make it home.