Dionysos & Ariadne (Dionysos (left) wearing a wreath and a cornucopia with Ariadne (right) holding back her veil. Bronze repoussé relief from a hydria, ca. 325–300 BC. From Chalke, near Rhodes. (Photo Credit Wikipedia Commons)

Adriane Speaks Out on Access Olympus

I don’t regret the sword
or my paranormal ball of yarn.  They
were the least of
my gifts to him.  Not that he

got my astounding primordial clout.
Like a magpie’s eye,

his always sought sparkle.

He wasn’t quite as sharp
as advertised.
My bull-headed half-

brother was a sweetie-pie, too,

not the brute T. claimed later,
in his Athenian McMansion of porphyry

and flat-screen TV’s.

Men crave adoration.  In fact, the tabloids
told it wrong.  I left him
on Naxos, not vice versa.  Why
would I settle

for a mortal arriviste, when

wine-lipped Dionysios crowned me Queen?
I spurned that, too.  Crete, Delos,
Cyprus… they began to bow down

the very instant

I rejected all other claims.  True
divinity means

taking the high road alone.  T. couldn’t punch
his way through a wet paper bag
without a woman’s help.  Stupid
Hippolyta.  She

had no clue he’d hog the credit
for her Amazonian cojones.

Still, I urged Mount O.
to kick T. upstairs…
to the Heroes’ Hall of Fame.

“God, let’s avoid the otherwise inevitable scene!”
we all agreed.

See, there he is now—pinned
to Night’s black
baggy runway gown—

his stars twinkling like teensy tacky
rhinestones.

*Click on the audio icon below to hear Malcolm Farley read his poem “Ariadne Speaks Out on Access Olympus.”