Camino Poems - Dionysus Fragments (June 3rd)
SuperTrip 2026 Blog Post
2026 BLOG
6/5/20262 min read
Dionysus – Fragment 1
He is the God of moisture;
not the burly biceps and the iron jaw
of ocean-deep Poseidon;
not the marching drum of waves and tides
moving in formation, a martial tattoo:
the beat of ships, the beating of shipwrecks;
the Classical monotony (misogyny?)
awarded by lot and demarcated
by the manly hygiene of the “Rules”
of his Brother War.
His form is slight.
The ancient authors call him “girlish”:
lithe not sculpted,
hairless, but not waxed,
smooth, fluid.
His music is the aulos, and the sistrum:
the stolen voice of Marsyas,
screaming as the flesh flayed,
the rattle of his teeth.
His beat is a bloody heart,
dying in your hand,
so full of ecstasy its chest
could no longer hold it in.
Dionysus – Fragment 2
He is the God
of the sweat forming on your lip
when you dance, when you climb
in wild places, on goat trails
sinewy and sinuous,
the edge of the precipice part-obscured
by vines and weeds and roses,
smelling of honeysuckle and stinking hellebore.
Dionysus – Fragment 3
He is the God of fever and the fever-dream,
of the cascade of reactions in your blood
that will heal, or kill you, depending on the day;
of the currents of the mind adrift,
the soul at sea, perhaps becalmed
slack-jawed in slack water, lost,
but not alone, perhaps tossed
on torrents of emotion, or perhaps
fighting the krakens of the id
behind closed eyes, knowing that he roars
and weaves and mops your face –
both crowd and trainer at the ring;
knowing he has bet his shirt
on both of you to win.
Dionysus – Fragment 4
He is the God of the Danaids
(all but one)
and of their father,
the builder of the first ship,
humiliating Poseidon, Egypt and the Patriarchy
in a way that delighted him,
(the God of censured things, of water and of life:
those daughters and that Girl Dad ploughed away,
and ploughed those briny furrows good!)
And it all ended in a sea of blood,
drenching unwanted marriage beds
with the wrong fluids from the wrong veins.
The Elder Gods were outraged,
sentenced them as harshly as they knew.
Down to the Pit they went, never to return.
Heads down, they went,
hiding their faces in their hands.
Only Camus has ever glimpsed their reward,
smuggled into Hell by a god who knows his own:
an eternity, together, sharing
(all but one)
their own space, a place
no one can ever drive them from;
the endless trickling, tickling waters
down their arms, along their thighs…
the freedom of it, the hedonism.
Il faut imaginer Les Danaǐdes heureuses.
An Elder Sister
She is always there,
in every one of his stories,
(at both his births and all his deaths) -
Athena of the war cry and cloud-grey eyes.
Acute, accurate, weaver of cloth and plots,
proud mother to the spider;
respected, even by the Fates
who spin and shape reality itself
(who someday when
will tie and cut even her own thread,
when all the schemes are woven,
all the stories spun).
Game knows game
She is sharp
as a spindle, a needle, a spear,
as the glass-edged sound of music made
from wind across a cutting blade of grass,
like the fletching of an arrow.
But to play requires roundness:
the puffing out of cheeks, the flushing of the lips,
the flattening of fingertips
imprinted with the dimples of the holes.
She abides no roundness but the circle of her shield.
Of all things, softness is the most beneath her.
And yet it must be so.
She drops the aulos where she knows
her little half-brother will pick it up
Camino Frances, June 2026
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Inspired by our 2024 Camino Francais, Karen has a periodic podcast called "I sent you a bloody boat", personal thoughts on faith by a person who believes in thinking. Also, known as "The Reluctant Christian". You can listen to it on Spotify and on Apple Podcasts at: