I forgot how much I like this poem

To Dionysos Areios
A hymn to the god who steps victoriously across the threshold

Hail to thee oh strong-hearted son of Semele
and Zeus who bears the aegis,
oh tyrant of the flute and the drums
that sound like the thundering hooves of a herd of a hundred invisible bulls
charging through the still forest at night,
Dionysos who shrieks as the grapes are crushed
and creates parallel worlds out of his delirium
– they say that had he and the mighty slayer of lions, Alkides
who gained glory and frenzy through the scheming of cow-eyed Hera
from whose milk spring up immortal stars;
had they not arrived at the last instant
the ferocious, flesh-hungry giants would have toppled the gleaming mansions
from the summit of Mount Olympos and driven the glorious gods to earth,
shamed in their defeat.
But then the firmament of heaven shook!
And a sound like a titan makes when it lurches from its bed in Tartarous
gibbering incoherently of the frightening thing, child-shaped,
that stalks the shadowy corridors of its nightmares
– like that was the braying of the asses that bore the warrior sons of the god of the bright sky
to vanquish their father’s foes as the prophecy of Nyx had foretold,
the veiled goddess whispering her weird words in the gloomy cave beneath the tree
that supports the world, bride of the serpent given the robe as her wedding-gift.
And when those invincible and grotesque sons of Gaia got a glimpse of the heroic souls
hastening towards them and longing for valor, they trembled.
Oh, to see such high and doughty beings tremble!
There was Alkides swinging his club the size of an old oak tree uprooted with clumps of dirt still clinging on
and he was ablaze with the pure fire that consumed his flesh and transformed him into an immortal being,
a god instead of a man. But that laugh.
He laughed as only those who have felt the blood of their children on their hands can laugh.
What truly terrified the giants though was Dionysos.
His mascara was perfect.
He grinned like a fox.
The pine-cone tipped staff with streamers of ivy throbbed in his hand.
From the waist up he was white from the ashes of his ancestors.
And the pelt of the beast that covered his loins dripped redly.
He was stone silent and calm. Everything was expressed through his eyes.
They saw his true nature in them, what lives behind the mask.
And it unmade them. They dissolved into chaos and fled the battlefield of the gods
like pitiful children and women afraid of becoming spear-won brides.
Be glad that the war happened when it did.
He might have fought on the other side, aided the giants
deadly as a pack of wolves in pursuit of tasty prey
had it happened sooner, before he was dragged through the swamp by a couple of asses
and found a cure for madness in the bosom of his father’s mother,
city-crowned Rheia, flesh dark from the inundation of the fertile river,
she who knows the winding, way-weaving dances that loose the mind from the bonds
of remorse and rage and riotous rococo revolutions of a soul in purgative torment.
Rhythm is the key that opens you up
and lets it all pour out, the good and the bad that we keep stored up in our heads.
From her he learned the mysteries that redeem and liberate
– through her became a new man,
a man with a mission to share the joy and bliss she made him feel.
Imagine what might have happened to our world if the mad god hadn’t had a change of heart.
So I praise thee, O kind and gentle one who desires his devotees
to be always drunk and rapturously enjoying life, glorious lover of the goddess Peace,
crowned with the flowers of a wet and mild spring,
gathered by the moss-haired nymphs who smile approvingly at the clever jests of the satyrs
who gambol through the wooded coverts of Mount Nysa
– thee I honor O prince who roused
the granddaughter of the Sun when she was sunk deep into a depressed slumber,
roused her with kisses and visions of what she would become
at thy tenderly cruel hands.
Thee I honor, my great god Dionysos!