The End, Beyond Ithaca Poem by Joseph S. Josephides

Comrades, whom I have lost, returned from storms
urged me to go with them to the end, beyond Ithaca.

Not because seer Teiresias in Hades demanded it
that I sacrifice before I die in the place of Neptune,
for young ones who never saw vessels or tasted salt,

neither, as Dante sings, cause I must drown by a storm
near a land of West, beyond the Pillars of Hercules -
after I discover experience and knowledge of virtue,
honor from a new project, with companions elderly
and slow, having left my wife Penelope and our son -

nor, as Tennyson wants, cause I felt boring in the island
of the worthless, of old spouse – whom her son controls-
or cause I want a journey to fight with gods and drink life,
or to get to the sunset, to reach out the baths of the stars,
and to execute a gentle work - not just living to breathe.

but because when I returned from Troy I knew 'longing',
that means it’s worth defying Cyclops to meet the Love;
in the island there were murders, interlaces killing love,
also equal treatment of unequal, the extreme inequality.

Institutions aren’t immutable but nobody listens to me,
so I sail off to find brave Andromache who inspires me,
to talk on values of a partner, on warmth that is missed,
I look for Nausica who will recreate my soul transparent,
maybe I can catch the place in her heart and in her bed.

Eros is the goal, that donates me knowledge until I die.