Magellan Poem by Nicholas Green

‘There's no place where land ends and philosophy begins.'
Explorers knew this. They went in search of
Philosophy's horizon.
They never found it.
They found theft and plunder pinned to trees.
They found themselves emblazoned
On the faces of those they educated.
They planted flags. They watered them.
They watched empires grow in
The fond shade of nights.

But this is also the maxim that drove a
Million poets mad.
It still does.
They still set sail in ships made of words.
They heave-to in azure winds.
They lust for storms.
They find Charybdis in flukes
That savvy bosuns sail around.

They know that
Good poets must perish to be renowned.
Death is the only thing that rhymes with life,
They say, and contemplate their prospects.
They usually have none.
Then they are gone.
What's left is circumference, and a sextant
In hands that still shake with the
Potentials of the drowned.

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