Finally to Burn (the Descent of Icarus)

Athena takes me

sometimes by both hands

and we go levitating

through strange Dreamlands

where Apollo sleeps

in his dark forgetting

and Passion seems

like a wise bloodletting

and all I remember

,upon awaking,

is: to Love sometimes

is like forsaking

one’s Being -- to drift

far beyond any thought,

forsaking the here

for the There and the Not.

*

O, finally to Burn,

gravity beyond escaping! 

To plummet is Bliss

when the blisters breaking

rain down red scabs

on the earth’s mudpuddle ...

Feathers and wax

and the watchers huddle ...

*

Flocculent sheep,

O, and innocent lambs!,

I will rock me to sleep

on the waves’ iambs.

*

To Sleep, that is Bliss

in Love’s recursive Dream,

for the Night has Wings

pallid as moonbeams --

they will flit me to Life;

like a huge-eyed Phoenix

fluttering off

to quarry the Sphinx.

*

Riddlemethis,

riddlemethat,

Rynosseross,

throw out the Welcome Mat.

Quixotic, I seek Love

amid the tarnished

rusted-out steel

when to live is varnish.

To Dream -- that’s the thing!

Aye, that Genie I’ll rub,

soak by the candle,

aflame in the tub.

*

Riddlemethis,

riddlemethat,

Rynosseross,

throw out the Welcome Mat.

Somewhither, somewhither

aglitter and strange,

we must moult off all knowledge

or perish caged.

*

I am reconciled to Life

somewhere beyond thought --

I’ll Live in the There,

I’ll Dream of the Naught.

Methinks it no journey;

to tarry’s a waste,

so fatten the oxen;

make a nice baste.

I’m coming, Fool Tom,

we have Somewhere to Go,

though we injure noone,

ourselves wildaglow.