Sunday 21 August 2011

Hymn to Aphrodite


Black Aphrodite
fills Her doorway
with swaying breasts
and Neolithic hips,
jiggles when She bends
for the milk.

Scrawny Aphrodite
shows an armload of tattoos
asking waif-like for change.
Rings in nose and eyebrow
glitter like quarters and dimes.
Anything would help.

Aphrodite in the morning,
when the world is calling,
is warm against my back,
Her lips touch my shoulder
until the world is silent.

Aphrodite with a thousand cats
reveals Her dentures to the world.
Her skin is as wrinkled
as a newborn baby’s.
Her cats are Her children –
are Her lions – devouring the sun.

Aphrodite is hungry.
He dresses in drag
And haunts the clubs.
Because gods travel in disguise
He keeps on trying.

Aphrodite, in Her living room,
swallows.

I came from the cavern of Aphrodite.
I breathed Her ocean perfume
in the womb of the world.
We crawl across Her belly
to lie between Her breasts,
to suckle Her life then expire,
breath from Her lips.


copyright (c) 2011 Daniel J. Bishop

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