Helen is not of Troy
and not of Sparta.
She does not live in the towers of burning Ilium,
or the ruined palaces of once-great Greece–
No, she is found between the folds of history
over and over and over again.

Blamed and de-famed and cruelly scorned,
She is every woman who bears the burden
of the faults of men and gods.

She is all of us–
History repeating itself,
maybe to punish
maybe to teach
maybe to remind
But it does not matter–
Whatever might be the ill-taught lesson,
the shouts of the imprisoned and deprived
are forever lost in the clanging of weapons,
false pride
and forgotten women.

Sing, o goddess, the rage of Helen
–which launched not a thousand ships
but was stifled and silenced
by a war fought wrongly in her honour.