After Circe

After Dante’s ‘Canto XXVI’ of the Inferno

To my drifting grandad Sebastià,
whom I barely remember having met once.

ô chercheurs, ô trouveurs de raisons pour se’n aller ailleurs
– Saint-John Perse, Anabase

Tell me, seekers of the knowing:
after the Enchantress,
after one year on The Island,
what d’you do, brothers in the wave?
You go back to your wife
& children, to your old parents
& your dog? To home & shelter?
Do you slave to a homeward urge,
or do you rather lose yourself
in senseless drifting, no other
lust left in your flesh than
the sheer inertia of progress
& the thrill of the search?
If these words hold a shred of truth,
then, my sweet, little band,
let’s sail on – if the winds fail us,
blowing from the wrong direction,
let’s just keep rowing far from home.

After Circe, what else
can we expect? Death by Chronos,
the old Carnivore? Do we care?

When our skin sags & our
muscles disown us &
our sight fails to discern the shape
of the End, will we even care?
So after Her, what’s left
but this bittersweet, sticky waft
of loss? The Adversary wins
& we always concede – but
in style: we plough further
until this marine ox crumbles,
then we shoulder the yoke
& we keep ploughing on.

Let’s make the dark skies spin –
when the galaxies capsize, so
do we – we turn our universe
upside down, then we die.
Indulge in the catastrophe:
in a curtain of sea matter,

brothers, we’ll be losing our lives.