Icarus

 

Swooping up on wings of wax,

forcing resisting winds, easterly,

eyes on the earth’s rim,

a nimbus of blue, on wings

of fear and hope I speed, rising.

 

I fly above buildings

where spidery circuits of power

grip cities in gossamer steel; on wings

of fear and hope I speed, rising.

 

High over Leipzig, my wings fail,

the day the force holds fire.

 

Slowly the wax collapses.

The wall

drops stones like feathers as the wax decays.

 

Someone else starts building wings of wax.

 

 

 

The priest and the dragon

 

In dust and shadows he moves and sees,

lamp-lit in darkness, a tower on a hill.

 

Kiyo makes tea in a house.  He passes by.

She weighs and measures.  He has to pass by.

 

She stirs him and blends him with spices.

He has to pass by.  He sees a tower on a hill.  

 

She kneels on the dusky veranda, pouring

him into a cup.  He knocks over a big earth pot

 

in his hurry to leave, aghast at her clutching

his sashes, late for his climb up the hill.

 

He recoils and runs, back to the temple.

He shouts about her garments of red cloth

 

trailing around him on the veranda.

He begs for rescue from her tongue and tea.

 

It’s a shelter, the round firm thing he seeks,

but also his death.  Her red robes are like fire,

 

echo the fire in her eyes.  She plunges in a

riot of muslin, over the bell. The monks look.

 

He will never see the tower on the hill.

The burning burns into their eyes.

 

They will not forget, they will write into a book

the moment when she wraps her scaled tail

 

around him, until, under the bell, he expires.  

 

 

 

 

Kennings

 

Shed a fair amount of battle sweat, slaughter-dew.

You should have seen the other fellows,

feeding the eagle, they was.  

I was destroyer of eagles’ hunger, the feeder of ravens.

We set sail, rode the old sea-steed

on the old whale-road, the sail-road,

 

fighting for Freya’s tears,

lit the bane of wood and sought the serpent’s lair.