Troy in New Orleans, Manhattan, or London
So I found “Helen” sitting in a streetcar; the Dionysian revels of her court were transferred to a Metropolitan roof garden with a jazz orchestra;and the katharsis of the fall of Troy I saw approximated in the recent World War. ~ Hart Crane, “General Aims and Theories”
See Helen swaying on the El, or
Perhaps far better, Paris, or the arm
Or thigh swell of Achilles. That is for
A poet like Hart Crane who sees no harm
In lusting after harder, mythic males
On buses. Modern poets must retrace
The ancient Greek tale (white its thousand sails)
With what we see in a watering place
On Bourbon Street or in the Bronx. The war
Goes on just south of Troy in Palestine
Millennia later, so why not more
Voluptuousness? Find it in a shrine
Made up of carriages of Tube trains on
The Central Line or in a gay bar’s brawn.