I am Odysseus

I am Odysseus

Son of Laertes

Hero of Athena Parthenos

King of Ithaca

I am Odysseus sailing through the starry sea

to get back to the olive tree where I will find my Penelope

I am Odysseus who stared down on Polyphemus

who curled and wept to Poseidon with black blood as tears thick

I am Odysseus who sailed through Circe's Island

I am Odysseus who rocked the waters of Styx

I am Odysseus who scourged through the iris of Charybdis

yet I am Odysseus raising a glass with Achilles, Patroclus, and Diomedes

for the women, wine, and Trojan blood sucked in the fields

I am Odysseus who plays rough with Eurylochus and Polites,

ignoring the sun and birds in the blue sky with the gentle winds

I am Odysseus who wandered for twenty years

to the stretched worn branches of Ithaca through the sweat and tears

there groaned under the silver moonlight

where gleamed the dust of an empty ship to the souls of six hundred men

who were considered as my friends