The first to fall (edit 1)

Those on that foreign shore that lay there

in their armor, shining like dazzling shells,

littering the coast, discarded, never

again to hear their mother’s voice — How many

of our finest fell that first landing...

how many young men barely shaven?

Too many heard the call to arms, heeded

the words of honor or valor and came running.

They could not turn aside for fear

of the finger pointed at them as they passed,

or the look in the eyes of their fathers or brothers

so they came with swords and shields

and died before it even began… Died

there on the shore of the Scamander, their swords

untested, their shields heralding their bright dreams

in the sun that shone down that day we beached

before Troy and were met with arrows.

How many fell? Too many.

One…one bright boy would be too many

but it was far more than that—enough to stain

that alien sand red. Enough that carrion birds

came in their squawking thousands to feast.

Would they have come, those boys

if they had known they would die that first day,

the first day of ten years?

And the others? Those who fell

or were maimed or simply lost in time,

would they have come, too, knowing ten years would pass?

Oh what fools we men are, with our brave words

and adventurous hearts

that lead us to kill or be killed—perhaps

because we can never again return to our mother’s arms.

Or perhaps because of the eyes our fathers’ cast upon us…

eyes that know what we really desire

and laugh—or worse send us off to fight

the wars and die on the shores of lands

distant from the comforting loam where we were born.

And another in the Odysseus poems

Age is not only the years

It is the weight, the current of memory

and the pull of deeds we wish to forget but cannot.

It is the desire to return when returning

continues to recede like a port with each ship taken.

It is the dreams that merge, the many breasts

and lips kissed, the hands held, the hands let go,

the secrets shared, the betrayals, the shared food,

the stories told, the laughter from childhood, the screams,

the haunting of too many friends with the coins placed

upon their closed eyes, their lips dry and slightly open

in a small “oh” of shock that death had caught them so easily.

It is the ears ringing from too many battles,

the sand from beaches left behind that are carried within.

It is a yearning for Penelope’s arms, her smile

and voice and the knowledge the Siren has seduced me again.

I am a pig

but sometimes I lift my head and see

all that I want and it is then, especially,

that age falls upon me…a rock

that reduces me to a groan

and little more, not now, not like back when

with Achilles and Ajax I set sail for glory

and to hell with the cost

only to discover hell loiters…waits for all of us.

Another in the series of Odysseus poems

The first to fall.

Those on that foreign shore that lay there,
like dazzling shells littering the coast,
never to hear their mother’s voice again.

How many of our finest fell that first landing?
How many young men barely shaven?

How many heard the call to arms,
heard the words of honor or valor and came running?

How many could not turn aside for fear of the finger
pointed at them as they passed,
or the look in the eyes of their fathers or brothers
so they came with swords and shields and died before it even began?
Died there on the shore of the Scamander
their swords untested, their shields shining their bright dreams
in the sun that shone down that day we beached before Troy
and were met with arrows.

How many fell? Too many.
One…one bright boy would be too many
but it was far more than that—enough to stain
that alien sand red. Enough that carrion birds
came in their squawking thousands to feast.
And would they have come, those boys
if they had known they would die that first day,
the first day of ten years?

And the others? Those who fell
or were maimed or simply lost in time,
would they have come, too, knowing ten years would pass?

Oh what fools we men are, with our brave words and adventurous hearts
that lead us to kill or be killed—perhaps
because we can never again return to our mother’s arms.

Or perhaps because of the eyes our fathers’ cast upon us…
eyes that know what we really desire
and laugh—or worse
send us off to fight the wars
and die on the shores of lands
distant from the earth where we were born.

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.

another one in the Odysseus series

Differences between Achilles and myself

2

It is said Achilles screamed like a stuck pig

that moment the arrow went in

but I was there and can attest to no such thing.

He stopped in midstride, his eyes

looked down to where the arrow jutted,

like a lizard’s  elongated tongue,

from out of his ankle — that ankle his mother held

So many years ago and yet surely not enough —

then he looked at me and I swear

by the memory of my own mother’s arms around me

he simply gave a weary shrug before he fell

both in body and in spirit;

a death so beyond me

that I know I might travel a million million battlefields
and never see its like again

A new Odysseus poem

Differences between Achilles and myself

1

I watch him sharpen his spear

as its blade rests across his right, muscled thigh,

the wooden shaft moving across his lap

and beyond his side — as we sit we laugh, we soldiers,

about our wooden tails that poke out behind —

his spittle falls on the blade to ease away the friction

and allow the stone’s difference to have influence.

The stone slides back and forth, back and forth

until the metal or the stone  — for who can say —

gives up a sigh…and I know

he sharpens in preparation for the blood he will spill;

seeks it still despite the many —

ah poor Hector who should have been the last,

you, who were first among many for so many of us —

who have already succumbed to his thrust

whereas I sit beside him

and sharpen my blade in the hope

it may prevent the spillage of my own blood.

I do not seek

unless it can be said seeking

is an act to forestall whereas he seeks not to forestall

but hunts death —

his or others I think he cares not which —

with the ferocity of the lion

as it prepares to bring down the lamb.

The Silence

It was first in battle
that I heard it;
the moment before the sword
meets the opponent’s swung blade
and your life
courses and flees,
both a cresting wave
and the scuttling crab beneath.

Then I re-found it
when becalmed on the ocean,
the sky above blue as breath
squeezed to the last effort,
the sun a dancer
frozen
and then in frantic movement
and we thirty or so
stood…sat…stretched…
and waited
for something to give;
most believing it would be the heart within —
it was then I heard it again.

And when — many years later
after I found my way home
and lay nestled beside Penelope
and yet
outside the window I smelled
that treacherous ocean
and felt the tug — I heard it
again; the silence that belongs
to the ground and yet is found
wherever there is blood
still moving around.