Return to Ithaca after the war?
Not bloody likely, with Odysseus
beating me like a mired mule when I dared
question the wisdom of our oh so lofty
kings and princes grabbing all the booty
at war’s triumphant end, when we squaddies
did the ox-share of the fighting and dying,
but bards sing only of the royalty.
So I trekked east and fell in with a band
of scum terrorizing the steppes, setting fire
to villages, killing men for protecting
their families; but slaughtering infants
a butchery too much even for me.
Best to live alone, tending my garden,
taking game, and trying to do no harm.
My one wish? A woman, not posh Helen—
who mocked us while we died trying to free
the painted jade from self-loving Paris.
May they be hurled down to dread Tartarus.
Give me a peasant woman: we’ll comfort
each other on sleety winter nights, or bask
in the loving sun of day, soothing me
when I awake from night-dreads of the deaths
I’ve dealt for no good reason, or from fright
at Odysseus’ fists thrashing me
for speaking justice on what we were owed.
May the gods send him a long, perilous
voyage home; murderous foes once he arrives,
and not a moment’s peace until he dies.
And then let the real torments bite him hard.
Robert Cooperman’s latest collection is AN OAR FOR ODYSSEUS; his most recent chapbook is UGUST 24, 1957.
