AVATAR FLASH FREDDY MERCURY

AVATAR FLASH FREDDY MERCURY

Plato asked me
what are
you doing?

and who do you
think you are
with that Flash Gordon helmet
and absurd boots with wings?

and who on the planet would
want to read your poetry
about
bodies, excreta,

fluids and things less
than philosophical.

HERMES

Hermes
popped into
the studio
to get
his wings clipped

no need to
fly when
the news is
instantaneous

no need
for a god
when messages lie

FOR APHRODITE

I’m sorry
the beauty
has lost
its power
over me

am sad to see
Aphrodite
so disheveled

once I may well have been
capable of murder
to know such lips

and now the
sadness, the strength

knowing nothing beautiful
this day, this age,
is what it seems.

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

WITH ZIPPO FERVOR

making love to
you would be a disaster
not a Greek Tragedy
where a god descends
to save you
(the bed bursting
into flames)

but a sad mistake, somewhat
bitter-taste inconvenience,
a shade of to cigarette ashes
lust, grey (the ghostly
gorgeous forty shades)
where once burned
with the fervor
of a Zippo flame

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

MAENAD

MAENAD

unless Dionysus,
whose creature
keeps me shackled,
release me

I will remain here
as much as prisoner
as his unwitting disciple
whose dark body
heaves, whose voice
rants, raves
so bitterly unrequited

MARS

I looked in the heavens
saw Mars in the South East
still glaring (old warhorse!)
but not as hugely
raw red as
in his recent proximity

god of blood and
Empires, but beloved
principle of conquest (I
am embarrassed to say) always
when I enter you
wanting to
break through your ranks
grapple hand-to-hand
outflank and
outlast you

and so you are
god of ripe, upstanding
wheat
field of flowing corn
sickle and sheaf, not
just
gladiatorial implement.

LATHER

feeling fragmented,
crumbling
at the edges

I think of Aphrodite’s
love of suds

the goddess bathing
working up a deep lather
no CGI could
ever do
justice to

SO I ASKED DIONYSUS

SO I ASKED DIONYSUS

so I asked Dionysus to assist me
with regard to you
(luckily your
beauty had not so
dumbfounded me
that I could not speak
to him
darkest of gods, child
of Semele)

I told him how
I hated those mere mortals
who had assumed the
power of gods
purely by virtue of
touching, knowing you

and by the strength of their youth
which even beauty such
as yours
could not deny

needing (if just for the
intensity of a moment)
to be owned, possessed
understood (seemingly)
the very
essence of your
being penetrated

this I did envy, this
with every bit of my body, every
piece of my flesh
did desire

which you, god of
ecstasy, intensity,
intoxication
must surely understand