Gods in the Streets by John DeAngelo

"Crowding for warmth with other unknown divinities
in an underpass at night.”
—Charles Simic's "Tattooed City"

Even his shoes didn't match.

In fact, he wore one shoe and one sandal.

His clothes, if you could call them that,

were tattered and torn, rags really,

soiled with the soot and grime of the streets,

his only bed, the sidewalk or some alleyway,

after being chased from the park bench,

where he grabbed what shuteye he could, when he could.

He was an eyesore,

a prick on the conscience of the frenetic world

and locked church doors even denied him refuge at night.

He scratched at a brillo beard, graying and matted

like a dog infested with fleas, and his hair,

sprouting in clumps, looked like wild onion grass

or the charred remains of a scorched earth

and in truth so did he—

Except for his eyes, wide and lustrous

like white tongued waves refracting sunlight

or expansive summer skies at noon,

riveting, sincere and unashamed.

As he extended his hand, he introduced himself

as Dionysus before asking for some change.

"Dionysus?" I said, uncertain I had heard him correctly,

"Like the god of wine and revelry?"

"Ah! So, you remember me then," he said,

swigging from the paper bag he clutched for dear life,

"Too many people don't anymore; that's why I have to beg.”

Bio

John DeAngelo was born and raised in Greenwich Village, NYC. And if asked, he’d tell you that he’s always been an artist, both a poet and a visual artist. John is a Vet who served in Vietnam. Whether out of fear of death or boredom (probably both), he first began writing and photographing seriously. After making it home more or less intact, he received his B.A. in English from William Paterson University. He subsequently pursued graduate study in Comparative Literature at Rutgers University, where his focus was poetry and was fortunate to study with the poet Nathaniel Tarn, who took him under his tutelage.

He has been published in various magazines and journals, including Seventh Quarry, Syndic #38, Shabdaguchha, Blue Unicorn, Red Wheelbarrow #14, Essence, Worksheets 67 & 68, has a chapbook entitled Beginnings and Ends, and in August 2020, he published Trump: American Carnage (available from Amazon). His latest opus, My Other Wing (available from Lulu.com), a celebration of love in all its manifestations both physical and spiritual in both poetry and art, was published in May 2022. Conspicuous Denial, a book of poetry, was just completed and is also available from Lulu.com.

To accommodate his other passion, he also took graduate Fine Arts courses, specializing in photography and digital mediums (painting, collage, mixed media) and has exhibited in both Chelsea and SoHo. Some of his visual art can be viewed here.

Contact him via email at jdajeb@comcast.net.

Author's note

Attempting to read the Aeneid in the original Latin my senior year in high school was my first introduction to Classical literature ( a benefit of a catholic education). Although my Latin proficiency wasn’t quite up to to the challenge, the story compelled me to purchase a copy in English and I was quickly swept up in the drama and tragedy, the heroic striving for survival and particularly by the abundance of heroes and Gods and Goddesses. The more interested I became, the deeper did I dig into the myths themselves and understanding that many of the myths originated in the Iliad and the Odyssey, eventually led me there too. And, of course, I fell in love with the heroic struggles, the honor and tragedy, Gods and Goddesses’ petty rivalries and jealousies that so closely mirrored our own and realized that despite the ‘progress’ we’ve made intellectually and scientifically, emotionally we were pretty much still the same as the Greeks and Romans over two thousand years ago. Consequently, the myths of heroes and heroines sometimes make their way into my poetry. My love of mythology also extends into Norse, Celtic, Indian and Egyptian though their prominence in my poetry is to a lesser degree.