Monday, December 7, 2015

Venus de Milo Goes Bowling

artwork: ralph murre


by Kelley J. White ~

Venus de Milo Goes Bowling

and you gotta love her, she’s just no good at it,
but she gamely stumps forward, ball pressed
between her chin and breast, and it keeps falling
out, clunk, clunk, and rolling in the gutter

and she’s up against Michelangelo’s David
with all that long-limbed, lazy power
concentrated in his wrist, looking out
of half-closed eyes at his own powder blue ball

and the Discus Thrower, wired tight as a Banzai
tree, all speed and follow-through, and she
would like to drum her fingers, she would like
to chew her nails, she would like just this once

to tear her hair out of that classic bun, then
the doors open on the outside furnace heat
and in comes Kali, on a tongue of white flame,
Kali, in her Blue Avenger Aspect, and

Kali she shifts her face, click, click, serpentine,
to each side of two mudra’d hands, catching
our girl’s eye, with that Ray Harryhausen classic
movie animation motion, then

whack whack whack, whip whip whip, smack smack smack,
strike, she rolls a prefect string with the house black
ball


~ previously published in  Ze - Books