Odysseus In The New World Poem by GORDON GILHULY

intricate blackness:
pathways
that draw him on
enchant him
tightly woven layers:
mazes
that draw him in
ensnare him
willing captive of the
beauty softly beside
him

it is early morning
outside the sun and
clouds wrestle for
ownership of the day
inside he wrestles with
emanating blackness for the
ownership of his soul with
darkly descending mazes for the
property rights to his life


what becomes of those swallowed
by the absence of light
why do sirens only
inhabit hard places


he looks at her sleeping
face in the sweet
light of morningafter fugitive
rays slip through windwound
curtains the surface of the
sea is golden at sunrise but this
blackness is grown through to
the bone this end of
world sadness lives in
the very shape of
the skull and all those who
might have helped have
already been turned to swine

the horror sings honeyed
songs to his wounded
heart



does he ask himself how
to break such spells does he
know the fatal names that
disease writes for him only does
he hear the winding
sheet applauding in the wind does
he see the water or
the rocks

he closes his eyes and
asks for sleep