A Dollar For Olympus

Dionysus leaned upon his bad leg, and groaned.
The Winter bit his cut-rate plastic hip he
Wheezed, and lit a cigarette,
And gazed into his empty jug.

“Just not the same, just not the same
Now that Apollo, that stiff prick
Was not around to disapprove. He died.

No place for truth and beauty in one head. Truth must be ugly,
And above all, to these withered souls, wisdom must not dance.

Athena? Gone, none knows where or could follow.

Hephaestus was replaced by a robot. Hung himself.

Hermes was fired by email. Got the word one Friday afternoon
And was seen off of Olympus
By a neckless crewcut with a plastic badge
The caduceus in a cardboard box.

Zeus fell down a lightning rod while visiting a virgin whore.

Hera died of grief. It wasn't pretty.
I did what I could, but food stamps don't buy ambrosia.

Aphrodite? By all lost powers don't ask.
You don't want to know what they did to passion.
Enough to say that she was glad to die.

Ares? He was there at Hiroshima
And knew that rage and joy in war were done.

The grove of Artemis is now a row
Of cheap-built palaces for managers.
Her sacred spring polluted, foul and dead.

You can buy tickets now to see, in Delphi
The absence of the gods, and hear their silence.

Thanks for the dollar stranger. A blessing for you.
May you not live to see your infant gods
Your plastic and your tinfoil gods
Your gods of pain and plenty and of loneliness in many
Grow old and die.”