MODERN HYMNS AND POEMS FOR APHRODITE

Awaiting Long Beach
by Todd Jackson

I am anxious, Lady,
to splash again into the dustbrown surf,
then lay one rose.
Io Aphrodite.

Prayer to Aphrodite
by Grisaille

O Aphrodite, golden, pure,
Pour blessings on this babe of mine;
Fill his arms full of posies,
Sweet-smelling herbs and roses.

Epiphany
by Zoë Melissa

In your beauty I see reflected
The luminous wonder of Aphrodite
As the moon shining on a pond
Shows the glory of the sun

For if I am awed by your beauty
You who have been barely brushed by the goddess,
How much more awe-inspiring must she be?

If you have been blessed with a mote from her powder-box
And that is all I need to transfix me,
The goddess herself would leave me struck dumb and blind in awe

I will content myself with mortal beauty
For the immortal would consume me utterly
And leave no sense or tongue to sing her praise.

Hymn to Aphrodite
by Lykeia

Muses grant me a fair voice to sing, worthy of perfumed Aphrodite.
Aphrodite dwells within her golden house, crowned and adorned,
Her honeyed fingers stretch forth to sway the lover's embrace,
All honor to her, ruler of the hearts, and to you all men adore.
Hail to you Aphrodite, your tresses bound with the ivory comb.
All Honor to you Aphrodite, upon your head rests the golden crown.

Limpid eyed Anaduomene, your body is like the foam that bore you forth,
The kiss of moisture, as morning dew upon the spanning earth.
Your breath is blossom sweet, as you whisper into our souls,
Rousing the heated flame from the sparked kindling of passion burning.
Gold is the arrow that sparks our hearts, drawing us into sweet embrace,
And lead is the arrow that turns our hearts, away in dread and pain.

By your hands these arrows you craft, and set into the fair hued quiver,
Send upon the heavens your bright-eyed son, to deliver your will to men.
Bless the marriage bed, craft not an arrow to lead loving hearts a-stray,
And to sweet youth bring the first bloom of romance with a gentle hand.
Let your art strike our spirits, oh Ourania, with heavenly gods-blessed love.
Let the dart rouse our flesh and hearts, o Pandemos, and bring earthly bliss.

As the Doves and Sparrows Command
by Miguel Oliveira

Aphrodite, Smiling Goddess,
Yours is the pleasure unspeakable,
A taste that fades the taste of honey,
A sound that fades the sound of birds,
A touch warmer and gentler than any,
A smell of a thousand perfumes
And a sight, oh the sight!,
No man or God can stand to the sight
Of your divine body!

Only you among the immortals
Can blind the wisest of all
With the mere sight of your beauty:
You hair flows gracefully
Gently stroking your perfect skin
As you descend upon our world
In a chariot of doves and gold
And again cast your web.

No man or woman is free from your power
And you rejoice in love and sex alike.
No person can deny you and stand,
For with merely your smile
You cast us in an eternal frenzy
Of worship, pleasure, sex and love.

And I cannot help but join your worshipers
As the doves and sparrows command,
For I am no fool to deny your power
Nor would I willingly deny your gifts!

To Aphrodite Summakhia
by Ariana Dawnhawk

This is the side of You
that I know best, yet least expect –
not reclining languorously
(that comes later, perhaps)
but fierce,
armed and armored
one of Those who know
“all’s fair.”

“Desire itself is a weapon”
a friend of mine once said.

I think of you
when I see the scratches on my lover’s back
and on mine.

Love is not always gentle,
and this too is beauty.

Hymn to Aphrodite Morpho
by Lykeia

Aloft among the sweeping city streets, there so treasured is beauty,
Like Aphrodite from the foam, women seek to rise to a place idealized.
Prayers are whispered on painted lips, that from their face they will reap,
For fortune is paid to beauty, and she who harnesses it well rises embraced.
The Muses gather in the square, dancing in the fountain sparking, flowing,
And there I pray that they join in me in song, to sing of fair Morpho, Aphrodite.

Dewed by night, in sunlight rising from her perfumed and flowered bath,
Morpho streams wet and damp, oceanic eyes smiling in great beauty.
Adorning upon her head, hair is coiled and trapped under ivory comb,
How those locks do glisten under the caress of light, as shining threads.
Gold is clasped and hung about her golden neck, a delicate pale arch,
And to her slender ankles and wrists does the bangles and twine rest.

Hail Morpho, most beautiful formed Aphrodite, rising in your western seat,
Prayers of adoration rise to you and flush your rosey apple cheek.
Women, many, fain to be as lovely as thee upon your cushion and crowned,
And the whispered wishes of parents pray for your blessings to their unborn.
For you face is the lamp of radiance and ecstacy, a fairness uncompared,
Men and women desire for their own, your elegant sloping jaw and lythe form.

And as time winds its path, and beauty fades into its weathered grasp,
Ambologera, never aging, as always stand far apart, and to you the many grieve,
That you delay the ravages of time upon their breast and tender face.
And you Antheia, ever immortal young and blooming, kindly touch the weathered,
Sweetly embrace those who impart prayers for beauty loved by men to be their own.
And there you hold before you the reflecting pool, a shimmering pearly mirror,
To our ears do these words greet, "beauty is before you, it is what you see."

Aphrodite
by Rebecca Buchanan

I am the rose and the lily,
Sweet-dewed and pure.

Aphrodite's gifts
By Melia

Your gift to man is love.
Not only Romantic love
But also between kin.
There is maternal and paternal love.
Love of nature.
Love born of friendship.
Love of one's fellow man.
Love of pets,
Love of one's homeland,
And love of self.

Your gift to man is beauty.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
It is subjective and can be found
In the exotic and in the mundane.
It can be found with laughter
And with tears.
It can be internal or external.
Beauty can build one up or
Tear one down.

Your gift to man is strife.
Strife born of jealousy.
Strife born of desire.
From envy that turns one green
To despair all covered in black
To chaotic lustful impulses.
You upset the status quo
To force man to grow.

Your gift to man is sex.
Sex with a loved one.
Sex with a stranger.
Whether done alone or
or within a group.
Painful or kinky or vanilla.
With male or female partners.

Your gift to man is anger.
Anger born of righteousness.
Anger born of indignation.
From vision clearing
To seeing nothing but red
As it shows a depth of feeling.

Your gifts to man are many
They bring pleasure,
They bring pain.
They let us know we are alive.

Golden Lady, Heavenly One, Mother of All
I hail thee lovely Aphrodite
I thank thee for thy gifts.

Prayer to Aphrodite
by Rebecca Buchanan

O Aphrodite, golden, pure,
Pour blessings on this babe of mine;
Fill his arms full of posies,
Sweet-smelling herbs and roses.
      --after traditional

Dear Aphrodite
by Lorele

Dear Aphrodite,

I realize now a lot of how much you like to show up in my life.
How else could I have made it this far?
I couldn't have done it this far without you.

You've kept my heart soft, as much as possible,
tending to mine own hearth flame.
Even with the world trying its damnedest to jade me,
I keep coming back to this sensitive place inside me.
I still hold within my breast this energy,
this flame of hope, this undying compassion.
Even during the darkest nights, I stay awake,
and I feel like there is a spark of hope on the seas,
waiting for my ship to sail through the waves,
finding that flame of hope hidden behind a rock somewhere.

I let myself feel the emotional pain of what goes on around me;
I empathize so quickly it nearly scares me.
I keep forgetting how you must tend to my heart
with a warm towel, bathed in some sort of divine love,
and with gentle hands you must guide it.

There's something more to it all that I know,
I don't know if I'll understand it or even believe it.
I trust in Venus, in Taurus, in unconditional love.

You must be somewhere up there laughing at me,
thinking I'm some horny fool who pursues selfish desires,
and yet I have a heart waiting for someone kind and gentle,
so that I may give to them the blessings you have given me.
These blessings aren't mine to keep; they are yours to give,
and as much as I want to hold on, I know there is more.

There is love which comes from Heavenly Ouranos,
the ideals in the heart of man, from whom you come,
the energy of procreation, the force of life itself,
in the very essence of the foaming surges of the ocean.

The crashing of gentle waves on the seashore in my home town,
the murmur of the tidal stream as the lagoon empties into the bay,
the warm sands along the edges of a sunlit beach in the summer,
the days when the flow tide leaves muddy pools out to the rock,
when the children chase each other across the sunbathers,
when the seagulls gently land and pick at the latest offering,
when the breeze cools the swimmers emerging from the water,
when the family sits in the noonday sun enjoying a picnic.

These dreams aren't mine, and I always hope they can be.
I know that there is something out there that loves me.
I know that "something" is you, whatever I may call you,
I know you are out there, doing something on my behalf,
waiting for me to make the right choices to find my love,
waiting for me to show you just how wonderful my love is.

I think maybe you would be "jealous" of me,
that I experience time, space, causality, probability,
I know I envy that you are eternal and enduring,
full of the limitless potentials of love in this universe,
and when I think of that, perhaps,
I think of how much I am blessed to be one,
one whom you have chosen to speak to in this life,
one whom you have chosen to bless with your gifts,
one whom you have chosen to experience these potentials.

It's so rarely that I sit and think about you like this,
and it strikes me that I've done something recently,
that reminds me of when I felt this way before,
this urge to live, to create, to share something.
To want to share my sexuality.
To create art for the sake of it.
I wonder why it seems to be the energy of the day,
of the force which drives me to dream undreaming,
to live, to happen, to unfold,
to start from this one little place,
this one little corner of the Universe,
where I see everything out from these eyes,
out to the vivity in front of me,
to wonder what happens next as I spend a moment,
thinking a thought, calling out a name,
performing a deed, speaking in words,
and suddenly seeing something, having a revelation,
as though I stopped trying to contain these ideas,
to constrain my logic that this cannot be that,
and seeing how it could simply be an interpretation,
and appreciate it uniquely from my own point of view.

How else could I have been gifted with such a bounty?

There have been times when I was like that ship,
sailing in the dark night, seeing a hint of light,
like a glimmer off of a rippling wave in the distance,
and knowing that the flame hope was somewhere out there,
like a small candle, hidden from me, behind some rock,
sheltered but waiting for me to rediscover it again.

It's like a chase.
I find it, and I lose it,
only to find it again.

What have I learned during all this time in between?

Is it so hard...
to believe that somewhere,
I am making a difference?

It's that love, to believe that this little energy I have,
I expend with the hope that it comes back,
will this investment in energy pay off?
I must believe it will, somewhere in my heart,
beyond all reason, beyond all logic, beyond doubt.
I could never give up on believing that it's worth it.

Maybe I'm spending time on the roller coaster,
wondering what it's like to be on a roller coaster,
wondering what it's like to be off the roller coaster,
never really sure which of these I'm living,
hoping that when it comes to a pause, it doesn't end,
just giving me a sense of relief from the motion,
a sense of peace, stillness, calmness, quietus.

So much, so much, so much.
I know that this circle of love,
this circle of life around me,
it surrounds as far as I can sense,
as though I'm the only one here,
and the circumference is the center,
the radius is a non-distance for you,
reaching in to me, to me heart as needed,
filling me with some sense of joy in action,
a happiness in creation and expression,
and this is what I get to live.

It's funny.
I write all of this,
yet I can't bring myself to ask,
I do not know exactly how to ask,
for something I do not even know.
I would call it my soul mate.
I would call it my ideal partner.
I would call it my true love.
I would call it my spiritual harmony.
These words are so dense yet empty,
and it seems like maybe it's not the time,
maybe it's not the place or space,
maybe it's just the right time, though,
and for everything I've given,
may I receive that which is due,
that I may receive my love returned,
and realize I am yet able to give more,
and find the energy connection of love,
that desire to experience the depths,
to know, to trust the unknown,
to have faith in the guidance of life,
that in time and space, I will find
in this Universe, "The One" for me.

-- I love you.
Somewhere inside, it's not right to say that.
It's not right to say it that way.
-- I want you to know it,
or maybe you want me to hear it,
-- feel it and believe it,
and maybe I'll try to be uncertain,
maybe I'll try to believe it this time,
and know in my heart that I have love,
-- unconditional love
waiting for someone to unlock it all,
with gentle words, touches, caresses,
a soothing aura, a charming gaze,
an enduring pulse, a carnal throbbing,
and risking it all in that moment,
giving in to something more than this,
just knowing that I will be all right,
in sure and secure love in my heart,
from the heart of someone else in my life.

-- It will come.

Venus Felix
by Phillupus

For those who are drunk on love,
what matter is it how she,
who is splendor and beauty, was born

From sea's swell and severed sex
of Heaven itself, of titanic Time,
or of the all-seeing Thunderer

Who can number her children
born from gods and mortals,
hideous and heavenly alike

Who can count her descendants
among the peoples of Rome,
both emperors and earth-diggers

Is it even possible for humans
to know where she will place her hand
of grace, upon whom, and when, and why

As an unanswered question is love--
but surely there is more to it than this,
and will we always be left asking for more

Happy is he who knows love,
who has tasted the mystery from her lips,
and yet why does he weep so

Her temple is here, on Roman ground,
founded by Hadrian, but--now broken--
does she roam searching for a new abode

Undefeated goddess, victorious mother,
purifier, changer of hearts,
friendly, golden, armed, heavenly...

Will you make your home with me?
Will I find satisfaction in you?
Or will your mystery only give further questions?

Hymn to Aphrodite Aidos
by Rebecca Buchanan