Father Of Icarus Poem by Shane Markie

Daedaleus never understood the danger of joy.
He was imprisoned for this misunderstanding,
for making a device for the Queen's pleasure
when the King has ceased to please her.

The architects of pleasure are wingless and short-sighted.
The waxy geometry of flight does not account for the angle of wind against the skin or the sum of sunlight.
Logarithms of desire, the delirious arithmetics of living,

dividing the sky between the sun which will devour all our days
and the cold, blue sea. We fly akimbo skimming the irreconcilable balance, neither bird or fish enough to navigate those distances. When I fall (and I will fall) I know my father will

fly on without me. There are more sons to be fathered
on an unarrived shore. Tomorrow is a margin in a ledger.