STYX

STYX

it is good that
ink is black (as
if scooped up
from the Styx)

what colour could be better
for the death-like
numbness I feel
now I discover the truth
about you

colour for the sadness
deep as that river
and as bleak

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EURYDICE

Eurydice
did not look as pretty
as he remembered her

so much time had elapsed
since she first disappeared

yet he had come
to plead for her return
longing to be reunited

yet
the dice of
life were

already rolling their
tragic numbers

and when
does the Underworld
give up its final claim?

CATHARSIS

catharsis
doesn’t happen
every day

the shock of witness
leaving us
dripping

for it was in truth
such a monstrously noble
horrific battle

the cheating gods
winning only
in the last
seconds

HERA

HERA

as a young man
poring lasciviously over
the artwork of Classical Mythology

you were
always
the one: I

asked you to call me next
time Zeus went gallivanting
as a bull, as a swan

but am
still waiting

longing for the taste
of your sacred pomegranates

AIN’T NOTHING LIKE

ain’t nothing like
commerce for creating
Helens of Troy

take war and
that other up
into the heavens

where trade is free and
tribute global
and there is
Aphrodite snapping
selfie
after selfie

STONE

O Medusa
how did I come
to get so
entangled
in your life
in your hair?

Those snake coils
drawn to me, sweet
to me (in
both senses) and
everything about us
of opposites a
gnostic fusion

but now
those gorgon eyes flare
anti-matter to
my matter
pulse with dark energy
deep as
a collapsed star

look upon what
you said was
your Sun
you called
your heart

that fire
now charcoal

that dream
a stone.

THE CLASSICS

I read
old books
(verb in
past and
verb
in present)

studied the Classics

like how 300 Spartans
died to create
a myth
of Western culture

and Spartacus was crucified
that Latin might live.

MINOTAUR

So I spoke to my psychologist
about my rear of all things labyrinth,
of tesseracts and Minotaurs

and she being Taurean
like the great Slgmund before her
spoke of Pasiphae’s aberration, and Ariadne’s thread
which I might choose to follow
once summoned into the dream
far as much as they love the idea
of the labyrinth, spatial confusion,
perspective loss,
they also love to mean.

RAVIOLI

RAVIOLI

don’t fasten my tie
into a slip knot
or any other knot
for that matter

certainly not
when I am eating spaghetti

for here comes
Alexander with a dagger
sworn to defeat all
knots in
his quest for
conquest

and behind him, Aristotle,
arguing with his mentor Plato
as to the
mode of existence of
the meaty
filling
in the ravioli

ABOUT MY NOVEL

So I bought myself
a writing pad and
set
about to

write my novel
(a Spongebob Squarepants writing pad
which features him surfing)

thought (back
in parenthesis) how
great it might be
if the writing
became like surfing

so
“go
with the flow”

but then I thought
“shark” and all the paddling out
in the direction of
immensity, and how
straining and
forbidding that
must assuredly be

Homer
blind as a
bat

he couldn’t see
his wine dark ocean
or ping through it
like a dolphin
but did he
not absorb every drop
of Mediterranean mythology

like a sponge
like
a Spongebob

and now I need narrative,
characters a story
because I can’t just slap
it down there
all theme
and metaphor

when Paris seduced Helen
you can imagine how
good (and what
a lie) that
story he did tell her

but quiet I hear my
story, rising
from the deep like a
giant whale
surfing the atmosphere
like a giant meteor

I bet Spongebob’s hang-
ten escapade ended neither
heroically
nor fantastically.