Well Bottom Blues

I’m reading Bill Lavender’s book of poems, City of God, which combines commentary on our modern world and his thoughts on Augustine’s old book. at the same time I have found a blog, Via Negative, which frequently speaks to or shares images of the ancient Venuses whichever on my own mind of late. And somehow out of that, this poem came out.

The Barbarians 

The barbarians (a plundered
conquest word) simply reenacted
the ancestral desert god’s command: 
dominion. Desire beaten into a sword
to take and take, disdaining offerings.

Rape as pillage played an important part
in toppling the breast-heavy statuary
of those goddesses who spurned
his thunderbolt and would not submit 
to his temperamental iron rule.

The crops still came and they blamed 
a hanging God, but not the one who
married  into fertility, gave Her the keys
to the gods' rainbow and Middle Earth
to hang from her harvest-heavy waist.