To begin with, a couple of couplets:
The Gorgona was a nasty bitch (long gone..)
who turned everyone who saw her into stone.
When Perseus did turn her to a pulpy mass
he used a polished shield - she was reflected as in glass:
And thus he became the Gorgon's-head carrier
having set between her and him a mirror-barrier.
Enough of Rhyme:
The Gorgon is not long gone.
A myth cannot die, Not as long as we're here,
and a symbol reflects
us.
A parable can serve as our glass barrier
It's a safer way to observe reality.
A good short story (or a novel) can also do the trick.
(Poetry tends not to. It is too concise, too harsh. It aims at
a presentation of the Gorgon's face. but that's beside my point.)
TV. What do you say about this Glass Barrier
who makes every one of us A Gorgon's-head carrier
We see horrors in the News. This is the world.
But we're not really there.
So we carry what we saw to our work
To school, to the university,
To weddings and funerals.
We live.
It makes us shudder to know
That somehwere,
Perhaps where the Camera-man and the Reporter stand
Beside the ruins of buildings and nations,
Somewhere, someone had to watch the Gorgon's very eyes
Someone had to touch the snakes that slither 'round her face
Someone's heart turned to stone tonight.