Ulysses


In the end he answered the song of the ice blue sea
Brought low over endless nights spent
dreaming in the arms of the Sirens
dazzled by their songs and azure lies.
Hard fall each morning
to wake in his cold grey bed
a stone of hopelessness
lodged in his heart.
He took to the highway
searched for answers in billboards
and the faces of strangers
wise men with broken compasses
He came at last to the Atlantic shore
where once he had seen an eagle
descend on a dove
a strangely peaceful ending
nothing left but a pile of feathers
eventually washed to sea
And so he opted for
the clean and bloodless coup
On a starry night
he sang goodbye to the sirens
stripped off his clothes
laid them on the beach
along with the rest of his life’s baggage
and all the songs he had ever answered
save for the song of the ice blue sea.



(Image: Ulysses and the Sirens; Herbert James Draper, 1909)