1.
O Muses! O Music! O R.!
Sing, oh Aphrodite, of miteration!
Of urine! Of lust!
Raise your divine arms and let yourself loose!
Your child you have given to us,
his eyes shadowed, shuttered like windows
beneath the darkness of lenses, the shadow of fame
the shower of piss!
Real talk, O Aphrodite, he promises;
his passion, his premise, his prostitute
underaged?
O goddess of love, of beauty,
what age can she know, this vessel,
this girl, this flesh bound sanitary napkin he uses
to soak in his fame
his lust
his expelled liquid waste?
How, O Aphrodite!, how can any of us
pretend to track her worthiness with time?
He is your servant, your gift. We thank you for him.
As she thanked him for his money. And his golden shower!
2.
R.!
You believe! O divine understanding! You believe!
Helm-headed Hermes flies at your feet
to lift you, to raise your body like your song
to the air! O, lucky air!
You believe you can fly, and we –
oh child of the gods –
We believe as well, as you have made us believe
We, too, see you, R.
We see you running toward that open door!
Followed by men with shields –
they believe, too, but in a written god
A law? How can this hope to
compare with your odes, your flight?
They see you running toward that open door
and see not a child of Aphrodite, a compatriot of Hermes,
one gifted with a stream of urine so powerful
as to make long-bearded Poseidon
gnash his teeth with envy –
No! They see only you fleeing the scene
of statutory rape!
What use statutes in the face of sublimity?
3.
Real talk, R. This you have, this you use,
like silver-tongued Athena!
O! Goddes of Truth! Of Wisdom!
Of Real Talk!
R., you can only be her servant! Or,
perhaps she is yours!
So, we, we ask you this,
in the name of your
REAL TALK:
What color, your urine?
Light, flaxen, like the hair of
the loving mother? Like the wheat
of Demeter? Thin with water?
O! Poseidon: was he hydrated?
Or darker, was it? Golden and heavy,
colored like the mane of Helios’
horses? Had you forgotten water, the life-bringer,
that day?
Or did it smell of pineapple, strange fruit of Demeter, of Gaia?
Perhaps asparagus?
R, supplicant to your wisdom, we ask you this.