another in the Odysseus collection

Shame is the longest route to the fields of death

It was so clever of me,

that wooden horse, so very

damn clever,  clever enough that I have found

my way across the sacred river

without two coins or the cold kiss of a blade

but, rather, through the longest death of all

that leaves no stone unturned in life

as it steals away all that is worthwhile,

the way a becalmed ocean doesn’t kill

but places all on board in death’s path

by taking all that is needed

away

day

by

languid

day

and the wind you beseech never comes

but instead your voice goes across the waves

and in dry of the ocean cannot return

but is drowned to silence instead.

So it is with that damn horse, and me,

so very clever did I seek to upstage them all

and found myself alone forever

with the screams, the death, the fallen

comrades and foes…tricked one and all

by my oh so clever mind

that could not leave —

the way a dying sailor who has travelled the dangerous straits too many times

cannot leave alone

one last boarding, knowing

it must one day end…

and end it does

but not in death, rather, in the dull shame

of knowing death would be preferable

to the memory of such cleverness

that thousands died to celebrate it.