A Goddess Waiting for a Bus
She’s waiting for the bus,
a Venus of Willendorf
in a black crepe dress
warming a bench
with broad and beautiful
goddess buttocks—
She’s waiting for the bus…
just off the corner
of Eternity and Vine.
She’s waiting for the bus…
as the gansta seraphim and cherubim
go cruising in their lowriders—
She’s waiting for the bus…
as the homeless chimeras and basilisks
push shopping carts
full of discarded paradigms,
junk mythologies,
the last millenium’s kulturny kitsch,
and other recyclable trash;
clattering over the broken sidewalks
of East Eternity Avenue—
She’s waiting for the bus…
while the eudemons and succubi
ply their trade in front of Motel 666—
The killer angels honk
when Lilith waggles her tight little butt
in that leather miniskirt
that matches her wings—
She waiting for the bus…
a skinny young man
leans nonchalantly against the crosswalk light
dressed in carefully tattered jeans,
a faux leather jacket three sizes too big,
and a t-shirt with the motto:
“FOLLOW YOUR ANGST”
Languidly he waves
a hand lettered sign
at passing traffic—
it reads:
“LOOKING FOR A SIGN,
WILL WORK FOR MEANING”—
She’s waiting for the bus…
A fat duenna
in her Sunday-go-to-meeting dress
waiting
for the bus to downtown Babylon…
Out of the alley
between Eden and Shulamite Streets
rattles an old hippogriff,
draped in crumbling papyrus scrolls
scavenged from the dumpster
behind the Museo de la Alessandra,
muttering obscenities in Homeric Greek
In his cart:
A bronze Diana with a light bulb
protruding from her head,
her lampshade of tattooed human skin
hanging askew;
An Arabic incunubula of Aristotle’s Poetics,
scorched around the edges;
A black velvet painting
of the Madonna of Guadalupe;
and a battered first edition
of Oswald and Sprenger’s Malleus Malficarum
(aka the “Witch’s Hammer”)
Belching up cheap brimstone
he bellows at her—
“Omphalos… Omphalos… Omphalos…!”
scorching her face
with his dragon breath—
But she’s waiting for the bus,
peering down Eternity
toward Abyss Avenue
looking for the red-lit alpha and omega
above the windshield—
A goddess is waiting for the bus
and it seems like forever…
Will the bus ever come?
Dana Pattillo, 1996
