BACCHUS

THE ENTOURAGE ~ Norman Lindsay (1879-1969)

BACCHUS 

	i.
Of course he was a drunk. He was sad,
	impaired, delusional,
Incarcerated by old age. Sorrow’s
	interminable puzzle,
His odd concept of immortality:
	he’d always been sad.
His dancing concealed his drunken 
	neuropathy’s stumbling
Just to keep up, just to endure hell’s
	bells, cowbells, jingle 
Bells, wood nymphs twanging off
	female songs of complaint
And compliant female triumph, so 
	little boastful belles—
We got that old boy’s bollard 
	hard as a fencepost, 
Or rock! Not deaf, nor insensate,
	his eyes yellow with
Spiritual jaundice, loose teeth 
	rattling on strings from 
Porous wine-dark gums, Bacchus
	a hobbling god 
Become a name among bevies
	of gothic ignoramuses
Who knew not him. He had a soul,
	and all souls are Gordion
Knots, each a unique, lonely puzzle,
	only no longer alone
In death’s whirlpool and boiling
	or cold cauldron, 
The volcanic crater of all souls
	and soils. Boom, Boom,
Boom, blowing never forever
	their tops, drowning
Him and them, again and again,
	in love’s mutually fiery
Magma: locusts, honey, lava 
	and manna. When 
Still young and a hypnogogic 
	Dionysius, Bacchus 
Wrapped his portion of anguish 
	in wildness, enjoying 
The pleasure he gave to his true
	believers’ gifted
Access to their tender portals. 
       Now not so much.  

	ii.
Now that flight into sex’s wet
	oubliette of vacuity 
Was incomprehensible, due to
	the chattering vacuoles
Who once made it possible: too
	much heavy, black,
Ocular mascara, piercings, night-
	mare tattoos, Ess
Tee Dee guarantees. But memory,
	that river of froth,
Rapids, and dwell eddies it is
	pointless to enter
Twice, knew of one with half-
       inch and high 
Apposable labia, hairy as cock-
	roaches with lips 
That clung as if to suck him dry. 
	Another claimed 
Oceanic transport twice at any
       common sexual
Calisthenic: once at its initial
       satisfying surprise 
Thrust, another at  its frantic 
       finale. Yet she 
Declined his plea for daybreak’s 
	natural need for
Matutinal relief. She cheerfully 
	insisted the jolly old 
Donkey’s quest, Was not about 
	her! Who then?, he 
Wondered, but kept this to himself,
	deciding he was
Up against maternal joy in treating 
	the god of wine 
Like a child. Genug, is what she’d  
	also said. And nein!
Due to own inner lifelong sadness, 
	from birth’s slap
On the ass, to the rest of life’s
	 tedious slubgullion. 
Misery was his fountain of youth,
	since it blocked
Maturity. Losing track of old age,
	his immortality.  
	
KR, 8.1.2026