those students are damn lucky
when the Athenian peltasts
defeated the Spartan hoplites
at Sphakteria
Bettany Hughes held my hand
during the whole bloodbath
she’s a professor of Classics
at some British University
she’s a beautiful brunette
with an ass so big
and tits so big
she oughta be in porn
then she told me about how
when Menelaos found
runaway Helen in Troy
he was gonna kill her
but then she showed him
her tits and so he forgave her
so the story goes
Bettany, I wish you’d show
your tits
now that’d be something
to see on PBS
the Classics were never sexier.
she harvested
saw a photo
of the poet Anne Sexton
she had the face
of a real slut
many of her poems
say as much
her best poems
are about fucking and
a long one about her stay
in a mental hospital
(yes, she had problems)
the rest are boring shit
some critic wrote
that many of her poems
are “unfinished”
those are the only ones
worth reading, you prick
well, she ended up
committing suicide at
age 33
another sad story
but those poems
and that photo
will outlive the Gods.
illiteracy is freedom
when I was
busting my ass
at Walmart
I often considered
how it was
that I was the one
doing all the
goddam work
while the Waltons
lived in big
white mansions
and flew to Milan
every weekend
well I guess
it’s all part of
the general injustice
of things
like American troops
in Iraq shooting
pregnant women
and joking they
just killed 2 birds
with one stone
I know a little
about things
and understand
much less
and there’s people
who understand
things a lot more
than I do and
they write books
about it all
that no one ever reads.
Bio:Ross Vassilev was born in Bulgaria and now lives in Ohio. He's a poet some of the time and the editor of Opium Poetry 2.0 and Asphodel Madness blogzines. He's been published here and there.
