Pelops Poem by gershon hepner

Son of Tantalus, grandson of Zeus,
Pelops by his father once was served
as stew to all the gods––a cruel abuse;
no god should be an entrée, or hors d’oeuvred.

He wooed the fair Hippodameia, daughter
of Oenomaus of Pisa, who’d decreed
that he would give no suitor any quarter,
and killed a dozen who gave her their seed.
Pelops persuaded Myrtilus, who drove
the chariot of the king, to lose a wheel,
so Oenomaus was dragged to death, by Jove,
and Myrtilus was killed, the poor schlemiel,
by Pelops, either since he tried to screw
Hippodameia, or because he claimed
he’d won a race which in Pelops’s view
Pelops the winner should have been proclaimed.

Peloponnesus is the area he
subdued, and in the war that’s known as Trojan
the Greeks transferred his bones to Troy, decree
I can’t explain since I’m no theologian.

Inspired by Linda’s bizarre response to my poem, “Candle in the Thighs”: “Lets do Plopsian dances together, in the buff.” I presume she meant Pelopsian dances (a word she presumably borrowed in) , and I therefore buffed up this poem for her.

8/7/08