I once said never, sure I’d outrun the weight that shaped my mother’s obese life;
yet, like Mother, food was my Calypso, it held me close, sirens singing songs of self-loathing.
at twenty-eight, I drifted far from home, three hundred pounds from who I’d been.
I faced the mirror like Odysseus sighting Ithaca after years of uncertainty,
and I confronted ego, my one-eyed Cyclops, whose glare kept me from seeing my truth.
the journey home meant leaving behind habits, islands where I’d lingered too long~
never say never echoed like Odysseus’ vow to crewmen convinced they’d never return.
I learned the body’s architecture can change when faith and courage steady life's helm again.
for forty years I’ve lived within the home I reclaimed, its walls earned and steady.
never say never means trusting the heart to navigate storms and still reach shore.
I’ll wait for you,
Like Penelope waited for Odysseus,
In the long-lost there was a love she knew,
One that your heart and mine are oblivious to.
Her and I are waiting with great uncertainty,
For a love that maybe will never come,
Cause hers maybe died in the Trojan War,
And mine definitely loved another.
But when Penelope’s husband that she was
Waiting and waiting and waiting for, will come,
I’ll still wait for you,
‘Till Ithaca becomes a city of ruin,
‘Till I’ll become nothing but an old relic.
I’ll wait ‘till you will be my ruination,
And ever after.
An old lady from North America,
Owned an evergreen shrub called Ithaca,
Its cones weren’t aromatic,
She stored them in her attic,
One night she transformed into silica.
June 15, 2025.
Telemachus
Ask Telemachus!
Penelope is aware of your grief and glow,
Go on, don't feel low
You are her beach
Fly high and across every breach.
Ask him:
She lived with you in Ithaca
Wanna see you in Makka
Where there is a rift
Pure air always lifts
The sorrow of uncertain lot
And you never caught in the fret and fever of any sought.
Ask him,
She brought up thee
And don't be a flee
Swing like eucalyptus in the air
Be rare and don't fear.
Ask him
You are the bright ray
An undiminished sway
Go and grip the intangible way
Come and click don't delay.
Ask him:
You are the light
Glow and flow
And don't feel low
The world is full of foe.
Rodman Edward Serling
at Ithaca College tried out for curling
he found he couldn’t sweep for the stone
and decided to write the Twilight Zone
*Reserata Carcerem XLVIII*
Sate jolting jungle 'n enclosed pen;
nosy nature's yawn gulped 'n' reeled rents,
bruised business time leases sucked spells -
apt alakazam writ ñ lone's breast.
Yore, Poseidon 'ter t' Ithaca,
skipped ñ Leviathan t' Rome's border
'n' anon t' th' jolting jungle fastened.
Ho! Rusty retina was moistened;
a haggard nymph ñ feeble fig sate -
sumptuous swell 'f breast, foiled fabrics trailed.
'wards felon fruit peered th' taunting ****,
'n' Poseidon, pious, rustic rage licked.
Hither thithered h' th' jolting jungle
'f which ere sewn sage's muse scribbled.
'20:07:17:13:22
Note:
a) of plagued pride.
b) Written apace with Middle English lexis:
i) Sate - sat
ii) Writ - written
iii) Lone - (of place) solitary
iv) Yore - long ago
v) Anon - Immediately
vi) Hither/thither - from here/to there
c) The following are used with no syllabic consequences:
i) 'n - in
ii) 'n' - and
iii) ñ - on
iv) 'ter - after
v) t' - to
vi) th' - the
vii) 'wards - towards
viii) 'f - of
Far from this antique bay and moor,
your plaintive voice sung for my soul,
and lifted me to Ithaca's shore.
Can longing's echoes loudly toll,
and invite me to your front door,
like gods that decreed from a scroll.
I sailed to Troy and far beyond,
to go and fight an epic war.
Men joined, forming paired, loving bonds
to be their bright and glowing North Star.
I took a boy, a vibrant blonde,
with whom I shared many battle scars.
With Poseidon, the fates between,
the sea opposed us. But I loved
the youth, Penelope my Queen.
Please forgive us, my loyal dove,
and spare us from your jealous spleen,
so Zeus sends no bolts from above.
I loved you, but desire's arrow,
against my willpower pierced my heart!
Compelled by Cupid's dart and bow,
we made love. To honor royal art,
I cede my throne: — but you can't know,
loving you both tears me apart.
Without you, I was forced to grow?
For ages, probably for prolonged ages
They have been waiting for the ecstatic pearl
Collages of pomegranates in bends and edges
Are on the toes to get into the whirl
For ages and ages the two hungry clouds
Have nurtured their myriad colours
Explosion of passion in retiring from the shrouds
Two fantasizes colliding in tremor
For ages and ages the starving crimson words
With the pen and paper set dance-like
Waited in the molecules of curve in the swords
Tonight they are getting into the crushing of psyche
Touches of silk and strokes of electrons
The birds at mad bites into the pineapple
Inbox is flooding with cloud nine neurons
Moments mesmerized in moonlit maple
The horses from Harappa racing fast
The fountain opens its wonderful floodgate
The ship tossing along with the mast
Tumultuous tempest in the Ithaca strait
Go go go Owl plunder your moon
Let the black beauty put on maroon
________________________________________________________
July 31, 2016
The silver lining has taken its root off the shores,
Ithaca, known for its valour,
Its existence, a mirage to many
Swords and sitars are bravehearts' game
Whose side shall your armour fall for?
Whose sword shall your thrust be?
Mind's hearts, its sharpness
Taste till the sun shines no further;
I
Wish.
It burns to feel its thong
So sweet; its sharpness
The Eagle's velvet, gone,
Whose army shall I battle to gain?
The Eagle's velvet; authority stands.
If it be gone,
I shall roam its gain
Moon shall crawl, the sun, dance,
When the Eagle's velvet comes home.
Your apparel wraps-up my frame today,
Apparel not, it’s you circumnavigate
My form as if through metamorphosis.
The textile you, stir my cells
Through pan-frame activities tactile
But alsa! The cells respond not to your entreaties
They treat you as ‘foreign body’,
And deservedly you suffer tissue-rejection.
Even my notes encased in your purse
Rebel and remind me how
Lavishly incalculative I was
With them – caused them
Part with me to comfort you.
I wear you only to tear
Dual floral memories dear
For those gnaw at my core
Adding to my years another score.
Textile relic of my siren
Hasten the wear and tear then
For to Ithaca must I return
Burrying all Calypsonian remnants
In the aquatic safe of the Lotos-land.
O muse ... the lauded poet Homer called
to Odysseys 'cross time enthralled
please tell the tale of warriors lost
of Troy's fall, of heart and of pride.
'cross the vellum pressed, Homer cried.
"Set course for Greece and damn the cost,"
Odysseys on his black ship bawled
orders as his crew there oars hauled
for windless were the seas criss-crossed.
The Siren's sang and woe betide
the men who heard them died wide-eyed
as to the mast Odysseys tossed.
All with him died the tale recalled
on Ithaca the King arrived,
to battle for his Kingdom most lost;
his Queen to claim, his long lost bride
he'd win her now with bow well tried.
The scroll retold and was embossed.
GAGARIN AND COLUMBUS
Brave or foolhardy
He was a dreamer of voyages
Into unexplored, unknown, undiscovered country,
The first to pursue the visionary images
That few had even seen clearly.
On an odyssey in void or foam
Many followed his footsteps on
The path but did not return home;
And fell over the edge of the horizon
With no return to Ithaca’s loam.
The face of an entirely new world
Never before seen mentally or visually :
He reached over the horizon and touched
It, as his voices told him this was all folly,
With no light, no chart unfurled.
……………………………………………………………..
NOTES:
(a) This poem was written to commemorate the 50 th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s
spaceflight.
(b ) Ithaca was the home of Odysseus.
(c) “voices…..folly “ is based on T S ELIOT’S lines in Journey of the Magi.
(d) Gagarin, Columbus, Odysseus, Eliot were all undertaking a journey into the unknown.
It was always the case,
I was never Valentino.
No matter
what chatter took me for.
Sure, like you
I enjoyed the duel.
But barbed conversation
blunts the appetite.
No,
my odyssey
was not for conquest,
or trophies for Ithaca
I sought a world
reflexively experienced.
The siren sings,
"I have long heard you in my voice.'
And so,
I thought you understood.
This dialogical person
cannot be reduced.
The thought
then arises.
My subjective centre of being,
is the knowing of you.
Alas, it is too denotata
for ordinary language.
True friendship
Is the love of rhythm and code.
And all conscious experience
remains shared with you.
It is the mother and metaphor
of all existence.
Embedded, in knowing
is the actual being of commitment.
And conversation?
It declares itself eternal,
witnessing the final act.
While I sit
punctuating the prose of understanding…………………..
And listen to your attentive silence.
you sing from memory
whispering secrets to the thousand islands at my feet
and row to the shipwrecked shores of Ithaca
i hear rustling of dry wind
smell the damp sun-kissed cattails after last night's storm
and see the land my ancestors slaved over
barren and fruitless as my womb
i call to ghosts
where are you?
you claim to know winter
so you climb Mount Olympus in February and learn to hate frostbites
and when stars dance you sympathize their songs
but really now
what are they saying?
seasons change with the moon
and i slowly caress your silhouette with clumsy fingers
suckling the yellow from aging honeysuckles
i wash the nostalgic Aegean Sea
spilling blue over a drowning sunset and painting beautiful Asteria
with bold breathless hands anxious to touch
but the water is cold
and i shiver
stay a little longer
pour it like the sun is dead.
but not
before shaking it well.
wait,
wat is je naam?
my father is half-Dutch.
stay with me, Martinique
(that name tag is lovely)
I have not been happy.
little umbrellas tickle
my imagination -
Gibraltar or Ithaca
or Room 143 beside yours.
is this safe, Martinique?
fifteen proof is my ceiling
but I do not care.
look,
your skin ring matches mine.
sorry -
Ik ben blij,
but I do not speak French.
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