#craig-constantine — Public Fediverse posts

Odysseus at the In-N-Out

1. High Seas Drifter

Dawn with her golden fingers of French fries
Launched the lord of lies to the white palace
Riven with despotic Zeus’s thunderbolt.
Now the great trickster disguised as a beggar
Clutches his stub at the red plastic booth.
Tears his gaze from the Helen beside him.
She might be a goddess in human guise.
Certainly there are immortals afoot.
Hermes darts between the chromed chariots,
Divining wants. Hephaestus works the grill.
Arachne with fingers of spinnerets
Weaves the plump viands with all the fixings.
They feed the deathless cravings of LA.

When the gaslighter with the silver tongue
Approached these fragrant shores, he meant to praise.
“Here I find such ravishing temptation
As did poor Eurolychus, the one man
Who dodged the fate of turning into swine
(On the enchanted isle known as Holy Wood).
– Only to succumb to hunger, and feast
On the forbidden herd of Helios.
Straightaway shipwrecked by psychotic Zeus
Along with all the crew; I alone lived.
Here is the ambrosia of browning beef
Borne on the peppery fumes of onions.
Good goddess or mortal, sate my hunger.”

Nobody blinked at such a strange outburst,
Of high-flown words mouthed by the ragged man.
They’ve seen and heard it all. This is LA.
The only sin is holding up the line
At Philippe’s, Pink’s, or this temple of Zeus.
The chameleon-like stranger read the room.
“Make that a Double-Double, extra spread.”

2. Dance of the Phaeacian Youths

Now Sirens sing out the glad guest numbers
And Angelenos dance to their music.
Raptly birthing burgers, swift-limbed youths
Radiant with workplace smiles, shape-shift
Like Athena as they trade tasks, now ladling
Hephaestus’s craft into savory buns,
Now chopping, trimming, wrapping, bagging
Never flagging in the crush of white hats.
This broke something inside the nameless man.
Not since the crews swarmed the masts and oarbanks
To sail for Troy, had he seen such prowess.
A phalanx of food soldiers: unwilled tears
Coursed down the cheeks of the homesick nomad.

He hearkened back to the halcyon times
Before the bloodbath of the ten years’ war.
And the cursed, demon-haunted, long way back
That after ten more lost years, nears its end.
When his house was not despoiled by suitors
Who dared pursue his queen, Penelope.
He despaired of his plundered herds and wealth
And trust of his wife; he saw no way home.

3. Demodocus, or The Blind Lebowski

A shaggy voice cut through the riot of tongues
From the Valley by way of Venice Beach.
The seer had wild leonine locks, and robes
More fitting for the bath than for the feast.
If he was not blind, thick shades made him so.
A sure freak in any city but this.
So the stranger took in each gnomic word.

“Hey! Hey! Careful, man, there’s a beverage here.
The lightning of the dirty dog Zeus
Hangs on this burger joint like all things.
No other way to say it, he’s a dick.
He’ll pee on your rug, and total your car.
But look around you, no nihilists here.
Just kids and gods dishing up the victuals.

“Now dig this drifter, who’s seen better days.
And needs a shower and clean clothes pronto
If my nose tells me what my eyes cannot.
He’s crying, man, like they killed his old dog.
For my money, he was once somebody.
And will be again once he kicks some ass
From here in Van Nuys clear to Topanga.

“So, stranger, don’t bullshit or stonewall us.
Say your real name and the place you come from,
Even if it’s bumfuck Buttonwillow.”

And the complete unknown was confounded.
A sightless man just saw right through him.
With nothing to lose, he at last came clean.
“I am Odysseus, son of Laertes…”

But his voice was eclipsed by Athena’s.
“Guest number 90!” – his very ticket.
His hunger muzzled his baring of self.
And he wolfed down the immortal morsel
Washed down with frozen milk, sweeter than wine.
Like a thousand sails drink in the Zephyr
That floats an army to its destiny,
Flush with the gods’ own cheap eats, he was primed
For catharsis ages in the making.

4. Ithaca, by way of Topanga

Hung over Dawn with fingers of The Dude
Two knuckles deep, bowls Odysseus home.
Suitors fly like tenpins in a thunderclap.
The sarsaparilla of vengeance goes down smooth.

Hermes lands a gig as a stunt double.
Athena’s the new it-guru for the stars.
Zeus finally gets hauled in for abuse,
And the kids at In-N-Out are all right.

Three thousand years the Homeric ending
Prefigured the Hollywood version.
Nigh-invincible villains bite the dust
While dudes and dudettes of this world abide.

Craig Constantine has been a day laborer, bread baker, furniture mover, and TV producer. Now a poet, his hardest, worst-paid, best job. His poems are drifting like his younger self, now in the UK, now in the US, now in Australia. He has just been named Editor-at-Large for Poetries in English Magazine.

Bullfinch’s Pornography

All very discreet, I assure you.
At one of the better clubs –
The gentleman was waiting for me.
A scowling, imposing fellow with sidewhiskers.
Declines my offer of a port.
“I should like it settled, if you must know.”
He handed over the package,
Tactfully wrapped in brown paper.
He scratched at his temple furiously.
Hounds bayed in the distance.
Terror flitted over his eyes.
A curious sort, as it transpired.

In the study, under lock and key,
I perused at abandon.
The nymphs! What sport we made!
Amazons! I worship at your remove!
And what ravishing youths! Golden-limbed Adonis!
Eagle-borne Ganymede! Petal-soft Hyacinthus!
I confess, my head was turned.
The water-nymph Salmacis fiercely
Embraces comely Hermaphroditus
Until they become one.
The very likeness of my schoolboy friend,
Whose delicate advances I spurned –
I relive, and think more dearly on them now.

And such wanton bacchanals!
Oceans of wine, flesh, and spilled blood.
The Maenads and Bacchus himself
Make of these the holiest sacraments.
Why not the Dionysian Amen to life?
The solemn glories of Christendom
Suddenly seem anaemic and humourless.
Oh, the hectic magic and barbed wit
Of these inexhaustible ancients.
It is too much.
I am Tantalus, who having feasted with the gods
Knows only greater hunger and thirst.

Such delicious revenge!
Juno in her splendid umbrage!
Redressing Jupiter’s betrayals tenfold.
His paramour, Io, now a cow. Callisto, a she-bear.
Their many bastard children scattered to the constellations.
Behold Procne, butchering her son Itys
And feeding him to King Tereus
Because he violated her sister, Philomena.
Hold – I no longer find this agreeable.

Mercifully, I turn the page.
And now I am Actaeon,
In my glittering royal hunting party.
Our javelins slaked with blood,
I wander off to find repose in the sacred wood.
Innocent enough, you have my word.
Now through the boughs I see
Crocale arranging the goddess’s hair,
While Nephele and Hyale draw water for her bath.
Who among you could look away?
So I gazed upon Diana, unclad.
Such a sight – most untoward for any mortal.
My eyes aflame as the nymphs scream in horror.
But their mistress dares with steely calm.
“Now go and tell, if you can,
That you have seen Diana unapparelled.”

Panic. Terror. I now know
From these mercurial, macabre pages,
How the gods heap lurid death and ignominy
On a mortal’s least transgression.
This is fearful doom. The abyss.
Peer not into the affairs of deities.
Or suffer the fate of Niobe,
Whose boast of fertility stirred divine envy
So Artemis slaughtered her children.
Or Semele, incinerated
Upon seeing her lover, Zeus, in true raiment.

How can I unsee the fatal sight?
Who will rid me of this cursed book?
My temples throb as the horns take root.
I hear the hounds’ blood-drunk cries,
Closing in on their master.
I cloak my shame in fresh brown paper.
I am 20 minutes early to the Athenaeum Club.
I pray the poor chap won’t be late.

Craig Constantine has been a day laborer, bread baker, furniture mover, and TV producer. Now a poet, his hardest, worst-paid, best job. His poems are drifting like his younger self, now in the UK, now in the US, now in Australia. He has just been named Editor-at-Large for Poetries in English Magazine.

Holiday card

For as long as I can remember, we’ve sent some sort of holiday card to our family and closest friends. Over the years it’s been store-bought cards, then for a while I was custom printing my own cards, but most-recently the professionally printed ones just can’t be beat.

The hardest part is always—of course—getting a photo the two of us can accept. Anyway.

Happy holidays to you and your family, and best wishes for a healthy and joyful 2025.

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Mischief began early in my career

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