Danae Revisited

by Jack D. Harvey

 

Between shit and piss
we are born
said Saint Augustine;
no dignity or decorum there.
The prick and cunt
too close for comfort
to the bunghole;
and shit is squalor
but urine not so foul
as mortal voice has claimed;
the voiding of it
by man or maid
no more brazen
than the bespeaking
groan and squeak
of bed springs
under the weight
of the two-backed beast
going at it;
a dirty funny thing,
the act of kind,
animals that we are
and reminded at every turn
how we are bound
to our barnyard of
earthly sadness and delight.

The human orchestra's
horns and bassoons may rage and roar
in our sometime ploughing,
our rampaging profligacy,
but what is more harmonious,
what sound more in keeping
with her divine, diverse, merciful nature
than a woman dribbling into a toilet?
Or vigorous and happy,
the proud liquid lapse
of a healthy man?

Laugh all you want;
I don't care.
Human plumbing has majesty
all its own and although
unsafe to sing, improper, maybe,
must be recorded, sung,
set down for the ages.

Go with the flow
Heraclitus said,
more or less;
what better metaphor
for our streaming universe
than our own golden stream?
Zeus' golden shower
through the roof
of the brass tower
on Danae’s womb
descending slowly,
gently, lustfully,
just a fancy trope,
an adornment
for our own potent
malodorous fluid
leaving our bodies.

I give this sample,
these examples above
to the world at large;
let others whose ample gifts
outshine my own
exhaust this vein.