radio minerva (lament)

by Árón Ó Maolagáin

The radio turned fake vanilla stale.

Denied rotation by daytime DJs,

danger girl, whip-less, sits locked in a cell.

Juno-faced prudes who, in Lou Reed costume,

lobby for laws to put Venus in chains.

Pretenders, proud, abstain the touch of fur.

The eyeliner boys were once so eager

to kiss those shiniest of shiny thoughts.

Artists aflame made vinyl flesh to serve,

now made stone, aegis obsessed, arrested.

Another replaced the love goddess spurned.

Minerva enthroned, not Venus in furs.

Breath deep: freshly-fetched coats of ermine.

Underground, we’ll keep the practice alive.

The underground is ours. One needn’t cure

hearts hardened from the want of praise unearned.

The trespass stings like the tongue of the whip,

so pervert it to make your Venus purr.

Then, after a thousand sonic years, wake me.

When the boys stop singing in legal terms.

When they don their leather, again sincere.

My illicit dreams pirate broadcast

pleasure pain sounds that make Minerva fear

the return of her sister, robed in fur.

Photo of Árón Ó Maolagáin

BIO: Árón Ó Maolagáin received his BFA from the Metropolitan State University of Denver and his MFA from the New York Academy of Art. He has worked as a curator and gallery owner of JuiceBox in Denver, as well as a professor at the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. He has published a handful of art theoretical texts over the years before focusing of fiction writing in 2024.