Author’s Note

Slim & Shady IX: Gods & Monsters is a reckoning—an apex of myth, chaos, and lyrical ferocity. In this piece, Olympus trembles beneath the weight of words, monsters roar, and gods are challenged not by force, but by rhythm, rhyme, and raw audacity.

This installment celebrates the audacious collision of legend and rebellion, a tribute to the voices that have inspired my craft while marking the evolution of my own. It is a hymn for those who revel in chaos, who understand that power is not only in the divine, but in the sharpness of syllables, the precision of cadence, and the courage to rewrite the canon.

Read it as you would a storm: let it crack the sky, let it shake the ground, let it echo in your bones. Here, I am both the shadow and the spark, the sinner and the saint, and the lyric that laughs while Olympus falls.

— Rowan Evans

Slim & Shady IX: Gods & Monsters
Poetry by Rowan Evans

I step into Olympus like a burglar with a grudge,
my words lightning—zip, crack, jagged—
splitting the sky between divine and damned.
Zeus blinks, Apollo spits fire,
but I don’t flinch, I spit back in kind:
“Your thunder is borrowed, your glory recycled.
I’m the storm you whispered of in bedtime tales,
trained in Multiverse & Madness, tempered in velvet venom.”

Monsters crawl from shadows—Cerberus grins,
Hydra heads nod,
each spit venom in Morse code—“Bow or bleed.”
I laugh, syllables slicing teeth like blades:
“Bow? Please. Crowns are gutter trophies.
Bleed? I bathe in ink, come out polished, primed, and lethal.”
The echoes of Roses & Ruin taught me subtle cruelty; Olympus is my canvas.

Athena steps forward, wisdom blazing, spear poised.
I match her gaze, wordplay lacing her logic:
“Brains without scars are brittle, goddess.
Even Olympus cracks; silk & sin whispered the lesson—humility through surrender.”
Her armor gleams, but I see the cracks—my verses find them, widen them, crown them.

Hades smirks, shadows curling like smoke:
“Child, you trespass in my playground.”
I tip my crown, crooked, cocky:
“Your playground is a grave. I’m here to haunt you tonight.”
Each line a hammer, each pause a guillotine.
Brimstone hums in my veins; Blood & Brimstone sang the prep, now I dance.

Monsters cheer, gods frown,
and I don’t care—
I spit verses like bullets ricocheting off marble and bone.
Word for word, myth for myth,
I am the chaos in their canon,
the question mark in every prophecy.

Poseidon crashes oceans at my feet,
but I rhyme tidal waves into whispers,
turn floods into fountains that crown me in silver and ash.
The monsters howl; the gods bite lips.
Velvet & Venom drips from every syllable.

“Gods of Olympus, Monsters of myth, listen—
I am ink staining legends,
the echo rewriting epics.
You think in absolutes; I think in fractures.
You worship power; I worship voice.
You claim eternity; I claim truth.
Bow if you must. Tremble if you can.
I am both: shadow and spark, sinner and saint,
the lyric that laughs while heavens fall.”

Thunder cracks. Cerberus snarls.
Hydra hisses in unison.
Athena blinks. Hades pauses.
And in the silence that follows, I roar:
“Gods. Monsters. Try me.”

If you are interested in reading the whole series, find it here: The Slim & Shady Series

And if you just want to read more of my work, you can find that here: The Library of Ashes