Ithaca
In the midst of Troy falling,
While their blood was boiling,
This man felt it was his duty,
To retrieve the stolen beauty,
Taken from the universe,
By an ancient curse,
Which tried so hard to defend,
That it became pretend.
In the midst of the explosion,
How was it to be Trojan?
This man knew,
He was amongst the few,
Who saw the death of a city,
Bloody and gritty,
But the rise and fall of great cities,
Cannot be pitied.
Paris loved the beauty,
Had taken the woman as booty,
He was dead in the dust,
A victim of lust?
This man had seen,
What that city had been,
It wanted no strife,
But had been killed by its life.
This man was Ulysses,
Come from across the seas,
Guarded by restraint,
His traces were faint,
He could not know the way,
That his far off home lay,
Out of the hollow horse,
He had to find a course.
Islands dotted that sea,
They told him that to be a victor at Troy,
Was a fine thing to be,
So then why was it empty?
Had it been a deception?
Was that the reason for the journey?
A gift that was slaughter,
Like the salty water.
Home was a boon,
As mysterious as a womb,
Is it possible to return,
Knowing all that we’ve learned?
Ulysses searched,
While his stomach lurched,
Through fear and nausea,
Was this a naïve idea?
What if he was unwanted at home,
And left all alone?
What if the womb,
Was also a tomb?
What if home has passed,
Like time in the past?
Would a life of wandering,
Be like a squandering,
Of his own essence?
The journey through the night,
Was one of fright,
This man had returned the queen,
But what did that mean,
When the child-man Achilles
Had passed like a breeze?
And though immortal in his head,
Childhood was dead.
Where was Aeneas?
Defeated yet honoured,
A seed of glory, far away,
In space and time who is to say,
What is real today?
That fallen hero,
Prophesised the growth,
Of another great power,
His Rome was to flower,
But that was a future,
That has passed away.
Doubt and despair were scaled monsters,
That crawled around him,
That took out parts of him,
That ripped him with an evil grin,
That gnawed at his goals,
That ate his very soul,
He had been weighed in the scales and found wanting,
This curse was a haunting,
The gods had doomed him,
His life was like a sin.
Heaviness bore down,
Crushed him to the ground,
Pulverising Ulysses,
Uncovering the fragility,
Of what he called reality,
Pressure attacked,
The universe cracked,
Reason floated away in a sliver,
As if on a slow, grand river,
A strangely calm act.
In the heart of his damaged soul,
Around fragments of pure, unreasoning know,
A strange image did grow,
An angel with flowers and a happy taint,
A woman that was love without restraint,
She revived the Achilles-child, who is alive and is dead,
And spoke of her love, in his head,
She gave herself with a kind of violence,
But had a further message that arrived in silence.
‘There is a great primeval power,
That flows,
And dies and grows,
It taught being how to sing,
And is, in a nutshell, everything,
You are people, not by destiny, command, choice or chance,
Your thoughts, cells, membranes,
All part of the dance,
Joy is survival, survival is joy,
That is the especial alloy,
Your roots support a forest,
And a great canopy,
You go up it, you go down it,
You struggle to see,
You are a clever and playful ape-thing,
And that is what you must be!’
‘The power has a voice,
And your voice is a part,
It emerges in your doings and sayings and art,
You have a primeval heart,
With which you will never part,
Listen to your soul,
Take its insults in your stroll,
It means only the best for you,
For it is you, too,
You have broken through reality,
You have found me,
Life is here,
It is not dear,
It is tough,
But always enough,
Everything is different now,
And always was, somehow.’
‘Death will one day take you,
To the womb of the tomb,
But do not try to flee,
For that is the completion of your journey,
I bring you your primeval part,
Your home is in your heart,
Know yourself, speak honestly,
Look, and you will be,
That is the part,
That I see.’
Sun-fire golden on the water,
He would have never have caught her,
That was the mistake of Paris,
Not to know what was already his,
Achilles laughing with glee,
Aeneas, his dream would be!
His lower stomach, the happy source!
He knew it, when it found a course.
Floating on a sea and on a chaos,
That drove him on,
Carried by ship and starry compass,
That were chaos’s sons,
The rules of the sea,
Are to learn to be,
The sea of the rule,
A mere tool,
Of a world that has to be.
To find that soul-woman in the flesh,
That was a test,
A test of himself, life, reality,
Was it to be?
To be was what to be,
A route was there to follow,
Life is floating, but not hollow,
The boat ploughed the misty morning sea.
On an island, in that sea,
Lived the heartful Penelope,
When he found her, he knew it was she,
Who knew that power,
Knew how to be,
They sat together and told,
And listened and questioned those times of old,
He told her of Troy,
And she told him of the free.
But Ulysses was not the only suitor,
An Antonius could see the fruit in her,
And mocked the hollowness of the horse,
His trick of force,
And Ulysses sensed the claws of that old monster,
That had stalked him on high sea,
He really had to prove,
He was he, he was he, he was he!
‘I am the hunter, and I am the quarry,
I have a life and I am not sorry,
I string my bow,
I let my fear show,
Arrange the tools of execution,
They will be annulled, with a kind of fusion,
I am no saint, I have sinned,
But I am no monster, and my light has not dimmed,
I know life is grim and sublime,
I have heard of a Monkey divine!
I am Ulysses, and this is the Odyssey!
I am on my way to join the free!’
And with that, Penelope was smitten,
With a bug of life, they had both been bitten,
With a love of spirit, and fertile erotica,
This is home,
This is ITHACA!
While their blood was boiling,
This man felt it was his duty,
To retrieve the stolen beauty,
Taken from the universe,
By an ancient curse,
Which tried so hard to defend,
That it became pretend.
In the midst of the explosion,
How was it to be Trojan?
This man knew,
He was amongst the few,
Who saw the death of a city,
Bloody and gritty,
But the rise and fall of great cities,
Cannot be pitied.
Paris loved the beauty,
Had taken the woman as booty,
He was dead in the dust,
A victim of lust?
This man had seen,
What that city had been,
It wanted no strife,
But had been killed by its life.
This man was Ulysses,
Come from across the seas,
Guarded by restraint,
His traces were faint,
He could not know the way,
That his far off home lay,
Out of the hollow horse,
He had to find a course.
Islands dotted that sea,
They told him that to be a victor at Troy,
Was a fine thing to be,
So then why was it empty?
Had it been a deception?
Was that the reason for the journey?
A gift that was slaughter,
Like the salty water.
Home was a boon,
As mysterious as a womb,
Is it possible to return,
Knowing all that we’ve learned?
Ulysses searched,
While his stomach lurched,
Through fear and nausea,
Was this a naïve idea?
What if he was unwanted at home,
And left all alone?
What if the womb,
Was also a tomb?
What if home has passed,
Like time in the past?
Would a life of wandering,
Be like a squandering,
Of his own essence?
The journey through the night,
Was one of fright,
This man had returned the queen,
But what did that mean,
When the child-man Achilles
Had passed like a breeze?
And though immortal in his head,
Childhood was dead.
Where was Aeneas?
Defeated yet honoured,
A seed of glory, far away,
In space and time who is to say,
What is real today?
That fallen hero,
Prophesised the growth,
Of another great power,
His Rome was to flower,
But that was a future,
That has passed away.
Doubt and despair were scaled monsters,
That crawled around him,
That took out parts of him,
That ripped him with an evil grin,
That gnawed at his goals,
That ate his very soul,
He had been weighed in the scales and found wanting,
This curse was a haunting,
The gods had doomed him,
His life was like a sin.
Heaviness bore down,
Crushed him to the ground,
Pulverising Ulysses,
Uncovering the fragility,
Of what he called reality,
Pressure attacked,
The universe cracked,
Reason floated away in a sliver,
As if on a slow, grand river,
A strangely calm act.
In the heart of his damaged soul,
Around fragments of pure, unreasoning know,
A strange image did grow,
An angel with flowers and a happy taint,
A woman that was love without restraint,
She revived the Achilles-child, who is alive and is dead,
And spoke of her love, in his head,
She gave herself with a kind of violence,
But had a further message that arrived in silence.
‘There is a great primeval power,
That flows,
And dies and grows,
It taught being how to sing,
And is, in a nutshell, everything,
You are people, not by destiny, command, choice or chance,
Your thoughts, cells, membranes,
All part of the dance,
Joy is survival, survival is joy,
That is the especial alloy,
Your roots support a forest,
And a great canopy,
You go up it, you go down it,
You struggle to see,
You are a clever and playful ape-thing,
And that is what you must be!’
‘The power has a voice,
And your voice is a part,
It emerges in your doings and sayings and art,
You have a primeval heart,
With which you will never part,
Listen to your soul,
Take its insults in your stroll,
It means only the best for you,
For it is you, too,
You have broken through reality,
You have found me,
Life is here,
It is not dear,
It is tough,
But always enough,
Everything is different now,
And always was, somehow.’
‘Death will one day take you,
To the womb of the tomb,
But do not try to flee,
For that is the completion of your journey,
I bring you your primeval part,
Your home is in your heart,
Know yourself, speak honestly,
Look, and you will be,
That is the part,
That I see.’
Sun-fire golden on the water,
He would have never have caught her,
That was the mistake of Paris,
Not to know what was already his,
Achilles laughing with glee,
Aeneas, his dream would be!
His lower stomach, the happy source!
He knew it, when it found a course.
Floating on a sea and on a chaos,
That drove him on,
Carried by ship and starry compass,
That were chaos’s sons,
The rules of the sea,
Are to learn to be,
The sea of the rule,
A mere tool,
Of a world that has to be.
To find that soul-woman in the flesh,
That was a test,
A test of himself, life, reality,
Was it to be?
To be was what to be,
A route was there to follow,
Life is floating, but not hollow,
The boat ploughed the misty morning sea.
On an island, in that sea,
Lived the heartful Penelope,
When he found her, he knew it was she,
Who knew that power,
Knew how to be,
They sat together and told,
And listened and questioned those times of old,
He told her of Troy,
And she told him of the free.
But Ulysses was not the only suitor,
An Antonius could see the fruit in her,
And mocked the hollowness of the horse,
His trick of force,
And Ulysses sensed the claws of that old monster,
That had stalked him on high sea,
He really had to prove,
He was he, he was he, he was he!
‘I am the hunter, and I am the quarry,
I have a life and I am not sorry,
I string my bow,
I let my fear show,
Arrange the tools of execution,
They will be annulled, with a kind of fusion,
I am no saint, I have sinned,
But I am no monster, and my light has not dimmed,
I know life is grim and sublime,
I have heard of a Monkey divine!
I am Ulysses, and this is the Odyssey!
I am on my way to join the free!’
And with that, Penelope was smitten,
With a bug of life, they had both been bitten,
With a love of spirit, and fertile erotica,
This is home,
This is ITHACA!
