I wanna run to you in an airport
Like they do in 90s romance movies
Because I miss you and
I’ve been away from home for two years

I want to sit on the beach and explain the landscape that
You know better than I do
In the language it was originally loved in, that
You never bothered to learn

Why would you?
You dip your feet shallowly
Into the water instead of dunking yourself
Like I do, down up down up down
Because you’ll be back tomorrow
And I’ll spend fractions of me

Waiting for a call or a text
For 20 bucks to send you
To breathe plumeria-scented air
From the oil on the skin of your neck
For a picture of the freckles on the webbing

between your index and thumb, and the ring
That I bought you before I left so that in the pictures
you post with your white boyfriend
I’m there on your finger

So when he’s teaching you the ‘local’ lifestyle
I’m there on your finger
So when you island hop for a surfing class
You keep me on your finger, where I can feel the waves.

I want to come home but I can’t, not before
I buy you a new ring, out here
in the empty expanse of a Where’s Waldo puzzle
It has to be

Something expensive, something durable
That won’t tarnish in the island
humidity, something that your
San-Francisco friends will ooh and ahh at
Because I want to see you wearing it when I get home.

I’ve been away from home for fifteen years
I return in my dreams, but the soil
doesn’t feel right, and the love isn’t how
my mother’s father’s father described it

At the beach, lots of people swim, but no one else
Keeps their head under and lets the water breathe life into their hair.
Lets the water into their mouth, chokes, then does it again.
But I like the way you

Dipped your feet in when you watched me
Leave, on a boat chasing Troy
Venus my northern star
As I enter the storm

My boat floats through the violence,
against Poseidon’s abundant will
because my sail made up of duct-taped exam scores
And half-organized sermons
Is mightier than any of his sons

I’ve been away since 700 BCE
But you’ll still know me when I come home

I wonder what Icarus felt like
when he tried to touch the face of the sun
and rub his hands on the sun’s cheek bones
only for the sun to reject him from trying to reach its throne
I sympathize with Daedalus grief
when he tried to warn his son from the dangers of confronting the giver of light
then watching his sons' wings fail him
When they both flapped their waxy wings
they both had visions
of where they want to go
Daedalus wanted to seek a place where their freedom would not be taken away
while Icarus wanted to fly
he wanted to soar with the clouds
and migrate with the birds
he wanted to reach where the golden gates were placed
and hold the embrace of God between his fingers
but the sun refused this
the sun took Icarus wings and clipped them
removing every feather that was sewn onto the wings Daedalus made for him
the hot wax pulling Icarus down to the depths of the earth

I imagine what Icarus had to conclude
when during the fall he then realizes
how this was going to be the last thing he will experience
before his body hits the sea
drowning from the great ocean currents
which took his last breath
I can picture what Daedalus must have saw
when he saw his son falling into the arms of death carrying him down below
knowing that even though Icarus was able to fly in that moment
that cause led to his demise

O Selene, th’ dawn of thee, so begets th’ writ of woe.
As day retreats, for repose ‘t seeks, so comes thy ancient glow.
Of burnishéd gold, and shimmering tones, and evokes a fecund mood.
Thus, to thy beauty a song, celestial one, goddess who weeps for erstwhile love.

Anew Selene, call I to thee, she who dwells above.
E’en mortals ‘neath, too share thy grief, strangers not to anguished *****.
So too we plead may love not cease ev'n as parts Earthly form.
Ere finality proceeds, ‘fore life’s fugacity, do I take to verse solemn.

Aye, dolefully I sing, mid the reign of e’en.
How the nightly hour doth conjure lament.
And though th’ heavens are replete with th’ color of ebony.
Embosomed am I by august luminescence.

O Mother of seas, Muse of th’ Greeks.
Predilect of th’ Romantics.
Anon Apollo shall greet th’ skies with light abounding.
Yet, will I await the return of thy presence.

Goddess of harvests
calls out from wheat fields waving —
Heavy clouds marching

I scream so silently
That the voice is loud
Enough that others might hear,
In this state like a snake
My tongue is forked
So that when I speak
I am having multiple conversations
Slithering across many fields.
Like the ocean tortoise laying eggs
Ever near the shore,
My children join me in the waters
Only after they have fully formed.
You say,
Nature is yet cruel
And shall lay claim
To many of your young.
And yet,
Is it not nature who spawned them?

Think it a wound
That has been cut open,
All of this
Pouring out of some person.
As blood like ichor.
Of Uranus a pouch, a receptacle, a quiver;
Time in consumption,
Like an arrow autochthonic
In the breast of existence.
Nursing the young.
Of Cronus a reflection, a refection, a ripple;
Time in digestion,
Like an innominate derivation
From the navel of continuance.
Bringing them up.
Of Zeus a reverberation, a spark, a sliver;
Time in expression,
Like an aborted secret
From the honey of speleothemas.
Shaping them out.
Of Apollo a radiance, a ray, a participle;
Time in extension,
Like an auspicious countenance
From the mucilage of angiospermae.
Birthing the echo.

Athena turned ’round her head
like a night owl on the sly
and looked up behind her
as gold Apollo crossed the sky,

riding with his four coursers’
flying gilded manes and hooves.
Their silver flanks and quarters
thunder across the earth’s blue roof.

The rhythm of their beat
stamps a lyric all their own,
blood coursing with the heat
of the sun-disk they all towed.

The she-god of the wise
observes this cloud-streaked scene,
the man-god shining out,
casting shadows ’round Athene.

Apollo’s path is sinking low
as the winter months advance.
The frost now blurs his glow
and bare forests fall into trance.

It’s in this creeping night
that Athena finds her time.
She draws her wisdom in twilight,
no need for blinding light up high.

For she shines not with a sun.
Instead she lights her own pathway.
By her craft and wits she’ll run
her own trail she blazed today.

She was the arms he took up
when the viper robbed his lyre of its muse

She was the devotion he carried underground to bring her home again

She was the mourning sonata that caused Hades to weep

She was the echos of longing that made him turn back

She was the immortal whisper in the dark of his guilt
That said
Orpheus
Don't forget about us