February 12, 2007

• Dionysus

  Did a rewrite of this poem.  Would love your feedback!

  Dionysus

  By Janette Schafer

   

  When the supplicant first worshipped

  the angel, his marble arms stretched

  to welcome her reverential embrace.

  His face bore the marks of knowing,

  the skillfully carved body taut,

  muscled, and beckoning.  He came

  to life before her eyes, beauty and art

  personified, his wings melting into

  the still perfection of skin.

   

  Like Mary Magdalene, she bathed him

  with the honey of her glistening eyes.

  and his hairless torso shimmered like gossamer.

  How intimate, how intimate,

  she sang the words in her mind,

  awakening beneath the sweetness

  of his breath, his hands, his body.

   

  Their coupling was an act of holiness

  beautiful in its violence, its fury,

  a complete giving over of the flesh.

  She explored every part of him, the

  tender pink of his nipples, the down

  of fire, yellow and white, the stone

  he was carved from both sturdy

  and pliable, this living shrine of

  rock and velvet, silk and sun.

   

   The temple of this familiar

  haunted and haunting, the man-boy

  and the child-woman, the breaths of

  thankfulness, the weeping of the

  bittersweet, the nectar of forgiveness,

  the hallowed ground of experience,

  Amen and Amen.

   

  • 9:10 pm
  • 3 Comments