The Peloponnesian Wars

You may have a shattered vase,

but I have a red rotund rose:

love that is somewhat obese, but

better than anorexic lust that eats

its own head, like a macabre circus

that, with clowns tumbling from the

trapeze, swallows itself with vigor.

If I were crashing in the Andes,

would I be the food or would I be

the chef? No, I'd just devour Darwin,

and then God would be happy again,

and no monkeys would have brains.

The subject of monkey zombies merits

consideration. But not at this time,

because the pieces of your vase

have ancient paintings that portray

Odysseus engaging in BDSM with

the sirens. And my flower wants to

wilt, to return to the sadness it

represented in a past life as a seashell,

when Matthew Arnold put it to his ear,

inside his cozy study, and heard

Sophocles and retarded Spartan armies.

So when we crawl into the broad

battlefields of our bed, and re-enact

the Peloponnesian Wars for decades,

don't be surprised if I storm your

Parthenon and defile your gilded gods.

For I am Zeus, and you are Io, and

Hera is hunting for your heifer head.

So I'll shove the flowers into your vase,

and we can decorate a diner for eternity.

-10/29/10