Odin and Zeus stand in the grand gazebo
keeping quiet company as they overlook the grass pristine.
Few words have been spoken between them since the great
debate of mead versus ambrosia and who exactly
made the better home brew in the neighborhood.
Their proximity to another was itself disquieting.

Festivities and proclivities continue on despite disquieting
silence from the high fathers in the gazebo.
Thor goes on about power tools, his voice carrying in the neighborhood.
Hephaestus listens closely, manning his grill which as always, is clean and pristine.
All this while Loki sets off fireworks at their ankles, exactly
where Hephaestus’ annoyance is most great.

Heimdall watches Poseidon’s cannonball, one so great,
the loss of water in the pool is definitely disquieting
but who he really makes the splash for is unknown exactly.
Hades and Hel talk business in the shade of the gazebo
while Cerberus and Fenris play, their coats pristine.
The two pets are the envy and fear of the neighborhood.

Fast as they may be, no one from the neighborhood
wants to join Hermes in a foot race, so great
he is at track and field, his record so pristine,
that he finds the lack of interest disquieting.
So he joins the rest, throwing lawn darts at Balder not far from the gazebo.
There the crowd tries to strike him exactly.

Ares and Tyr aren’t enemies exactly
but their time as high school football rivals entangled the neighborhood.
But truly they just wanted the attention of those men in the gazebo.
Athena reads a tabloid about Isis and Osiris, a romance so great,
while she tries to ignore her own jealously, one disquieting,
of the boys ogling the sunbathing Aphrodite, her beauty pristine.

Despite outward appearances, and dignity far from pristine,
Frigg and Hera provide one another silent comfort for they know exactly
what the other knows, the hushed truth indeed disquieting.
Everyone is keenly aware that most children in the neighborhood,
their numbers obscene, their numbers great,
were mostly fathered by those in the gazebo.

Exactly who would unravel this hardly pristine neighborhood?
Despite disquieting family histories, their legacies remain great.
The fathers are and have always been above reproach in their gazebo.

————

Kyle Brandon Lee is a Texas-born writer of poetry, prose and plays. He’s published at Mirror Dance, Furtive Dalliance and Soft Cartel. If someday they open an old and dusty tome made of pecan bark and armadillo hide, perhaps they’ll find his work within. Hopefully, it will be plentiful. He can be found at his website www.hillsdreaming.com or on twitter @HDTMountains