Phaéthon

coughing in dusty doorways

feels empty ghost town

plague

Camus is embarrassed

and nowhere to be found on the shelves

world map

I could take what I want but I don’t

fine line of ethics treading

emotion and reaction

as I tread upon these stairs

creaking going down a corner

no bestsellers on display just

dusty posters  yellow pages

when I was little I would make maps

of bear trails in the woods

maps

tracking the footprints of the past tense

predicting future wanderings

through a present action

somehow befouling the spirit of truth

with images

but making them beautiful

more perfect

these are maps of history

of creativity and

the psychology of dead people

who cares if there was a siege of Troy

people believed there was

Homer’s value is more its legacy

than historical merit

if something that is not true is

rendered artistically in a way that 

convinces the viewer  isn’t it

a successful argument

who determines what is logical

after all

we all have minds

look at all these rolled scrolls

dragons

cyclops

giants

witches

all the things you wished for

or made real

as a child

my fingers trace paper – 

paper that feels tangible, powerful

this will change the way I see

the world forever

maps can be biased

is Greenland really that size

relativity

they show certain scenes

some attempt to be more

creative than others

some tell stories better than Ovid

I see Phaethon

who dared to drive the sun’s chariot 

across the sky

I see him at the moment

that he loses control

the fear closes over his eyes

his hands loosen on the reins

the whites show in the horses’ eyes

are they angry?

we wonder

so many questions

why did he do it

why did he give up

is it a warning

or a statement of power and free will

we reach to steer the sun every day

stretching toward that daily bread

that feeds us and burns our hands

pulls the reins away from our hungry fingers

I see my will dissipate before my eyes

Phaethon is dead alive

skin burned by sun even as he lets go

a fist so tight when it opens blood

surges so hard it tears flesh

from the bones

map of failure? map of struggle

struggling for perfection

falling back at the

edge

of the paper