we shall not love you
the people cry
we shall not worship
or adore you
and the Gods of Olympus sigh
and though famine punish
and surplus grant
the people do not let up their chant.
Old Zeus grown weary through graying age
as young as the day his father, slayed
yet older in mind and wiser still
has had enough of humanities fill.
And thunderbolts he throws from his clouded sky
and below the people cry
"We shall not go quietly into the night!"
"We deny you and so we'll fight!"
And Aphrodite, her beauty now common place
a million mimicry's in plastic-made face
paints war paint on cheek and brow
and shouts with a dangerous frown
"Raise your blades at me with dread!"
"With Eos rise you'll all be dead!"
But plain Athena stays her hand
and looks down on the rabid band
with helmet and spear, in moonbeams clad
she shakes her head, expression sad
"Leave them be, my sister,"
"Do not let rise your anger."
But fair villain Beauty ran
and clutched at another man
"Ares!" cried the Goddess, "Act for me!"
and bloodthirsty God, he got to his feet
and with chariot of fire and wheels of bones
and Discord and Malice singing their songs
he rushed to do the bidding
to a conflict that needed winning.
But Apollo's chariot drew close
and blocked his path with the sun
"No, Brother, do not go."
"This is not a war to be won."
And below Demeter drew back her hand
and crops and rivers dried to sand
and Persephone never rose from her tomb
to usher new life from springtimes womb
and Hades fickle laugh with Hermes nervous snicker
Artemis let wane the moon and stars flicker.
And darkness shut out a world malcontented
left in darkness as the people lamented
and Eos stayed abed for years at a time
Prometheus fires wouldn't burn, the cities were slime
and those that once were men
were transformed once then again...
and from the darkness there rose
things with sightless eyes, creatures predisposed
to live in blackness and filth by Fates three
and banished were they to the depth of the sea.
And there they live still, in the Challenger Deep
and further below even more of them sleep
the creatures that once molested the God's door
the myth, if that, of monsters called Noctor.