PERSEPHONE
ALM No.91, July 2026
POETRY
Persephone
Yes, your uncle carried you off.
Cry me the River Styx.
You soon had the besotted old goat
Bent to your every whim.
Not tragedy - destiny.
You were the fabulous Queen of Hell.
Wintour and Ru Paul genuflected.
Party-hopping in your stretch Mercedes
From Malibu to Mulholland.
Starfucker, procuress, emotional dominatrix.
Shelling out hits of self-pity
Like so much Special K.
All those bruised egos eating you up.
See, I knew you back when.
Two weird kids who somehow found each other.
We fed on each other’s sadness.
We were junkies for nihilism.
Our dirty little fumblings
Not nearly as intimate as our shared
Tantrums of misery.
The day poor Hades crowned you
In your paradisiacal netherworld,
The spell broke.
I didn’t miss your sullen
Runway-model looks.
Your neediness,
Your presumption.
You thought you owned me along with the rest.
Then out of nowhere I see you again.
At Trader Joe’s. Walking your hellhound.
The bar at BLVD Steak, everywhere.
I couldn’t shake you.
A mistake, giving you my number.
But you looked like money, and celebrity.
And now we’re at Petit Trois, swilling wine.
The waiter studies your famous cleavage
As he tops off that last glass.
Your foot brushes mine.
I let my guard down.
Now you’re pressing me against the wall.
My hands are cuffed,
Somewhere in your dress.
Your body feels no different,
Just filled out.
Surrender feels so good.
A long-caged beast breaks free.
Now we’ve had a lost weekend, or three or four,
Two months running. I’ve lost count.
Thus depression kills memory.
I thought, “Well, that’s it.
We were meant for each other after all.”
This is how it ends, with a possessive
Doom junkie of a mistress.
Sid and Nancy at the Chelsea.
Or Kurt and Courtney, the dark muse lives on.
But now your sleeping body repels me.
The sheet’s slipped away,
Exposing a bloat of flesh
Preserved in stale cologne.
Smug even when at rest.
Nobody leaves Persephone.
But I dress while she’s murmuring
Something in a sex dream,
And steal from the room.
The morning shines like an Oscar.
The open road blows me another kiss.
I am free again of the maleficent goddess.
Until the next time, those Jimmy Choos
Strut back into my life.
Phaeton
1.
At the packed little table in Mariscos del Sol
On his second Modelo,
I hit up the old man again for the lowrider.
He flexes the faded tats on his knuckles,
Unclips the big keychain,
And dangles the burnished metal.
“Cuidáte mucho, mi hijo,” is all he says.
I almost get out the door when big Tomás
Blocks me.
Tells me one of his many bullshit stories
About some pendejo named Faetón.
Who wrecked his father’s sweet ride,
And somehow, the whole barrio.
“No te preocupes, tío. I got this.”
And I slip past him to the parking lot.
It blings like an OG rapper in the morning light.
Metallic gold ’64 Impala, slathered in green pinstripes,
Fourteen inch Dayton wires, skirts,
Low as my buzz cut, muy bajito.
El Jefe – El Rey – the GOAT.
I eased myself into the deep tuck and roll
And drank in the dash.
Padded with velvet and decked out in chrome gauges,
And ofrenda altar with the sugar skulls.
I keyed the ignition and all of La Raza’s voice
Seemed to come out of the exhaust.
I remembered the promises to my father,
As I put it into gear. Despacio, idiota. No fuck ups.
I cranked up the G-funk
And rounding the corner, there was Lupita,
In parachute pants and tube top.
“Mira who’s all grown up! Make Daddy jump!”
So I lit up the hydraulics, maxed the subwoofers,
And Lupita danced with the car
That danced with the streets of Pacoima.
I was high as graduation day. She hopped in,
And I had to gun it, just the once.
To show her I was no flojo.
Shit, almost clipped that Civic.
But Lupe didn’t cop, texting her friends.
And soon the back seat was full, too.
¡Más rapido! ¡Súbele la motherfucking música!
Ximena’s got her hands over my eyes, laughing
And leaning her tetas against my back.
Well I blew through that stoplight like nothing.
I’m the king of Sherman Way.
2.
Old Paco looks out from his sagging balcony
And jumps up like he’s seen a ghost.
Makes the call. “Jefe, just like the bad old days.
“I saw Big Aurelio’s bajito go down our street.
“Claro que sí…¡En serio!”
But Carlito, you know, he’s a businessman.
Some of it almost legal.
He doesn’t go in for all that El Chapo bullshit.
He sends out a patrol, just to show the colors.
Just to respect the old fronteras del barrio.
And now Ximena and Renata and Laura are standing up
In the back seat like prom queens,
Doing the pistolera thing with their hands.
Crossing Lankershim, there’s a pop.
A backfire? A warning shot? Nobody knows.
And now Lupita pulls something out of the glove box.
Bichitos whiz past, the prettiest puffs of air,
Until I hear ufff from the back seat.
Lupe lets fly and the recoil throws her against me,
As the black Escalade drifts right, then hard left
Jamming me to the curb.
We plow right through the garden
And into the front room of the old folks home.
Francisco, in a wheelchair since some old-time tiroteo,
Vin Diesels it:
“Toldja Aurelio would bust us out of this dump.”
3.
And the Valley gangs are back at it like 1995.
Pacas Treces and Vineland Locos and Varrio San Fers.
Van Nuys Asian Boyz for the full remix.
Rucker’s Mortuary is booked solid.
Renata’s family glares me down in the hospital.
Lupita’s ghosted me for good.
I limp into the garage where they’ve got the bajito.
The frame’s dead straight again.
A set of new fourteen Ds taunt me from the rack.
I feel the big hand on my shoulder.
“Ya sabes how this ends, Aurelito,”
Says Tomás, flicking the safety. I nod with relief.
Vaya, it’s really like a thunderbolt to the skull.
Now I’m falling like Faetón, into a black river at midnight.
Odysseus at the In-N-Out
1. International Man of Mystery
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 looker 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).
- Was then maddened by hunger, and feasted
On the forbidden herd of Helios.
Straightaway shipwrecked by psychotic Zeus
Along with all the crew; I alone lived.
Here is the ambrosial funk of fried beef
Bourne on the sulphurous 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.
Where between skate kids and studio heads
Only a guy in suit and tie draws scorn.
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 self-aware 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 three-buck Bacchanal: unbidden 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 wise 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 inconsolably.
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 Murrieta.”
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 sugar and fat, he was now primed
For sweet payback of epic proportion.
4. Ithaca, or possibly Topanga
Hung over Dawn with fingers of The Dude
Two knuckles deep, bowls Odysseus home.
Suitors fly like tenpins in a thunderclap.
The sarsparilla of vengeance goes down smooth.
Three thousand years the Homeric ending
Prefigured the Hollywood version.
The almighty jerkoff Zeus blows his wad.
While the outliers of the world abide.
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 leisure.
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, factory worker, and TV producer. Now a poet, the hardest, worst-paid, best job he’s had. His poems are drifting like his younger self, now in the UK, now in the US, now in Australia. He lives with in LA with his wife Stacey and son Chris in a haunted house, along with Cody the Border Collie, numerous koi fish, and a family of owls.
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