March 8-14, 2010: Robert Wynne and Hanoch Guy

Odysseus Surprised by a Poem

Scrawled in an airport bathroom
on a stall wall with thick black ink,
a few unexpected lines:

Haikus are easy
But sometimes they don’t sound good
Refrigerator

Odysseus smiles, suddenly hungry,
then focuses for a moment
on clear water splashing

the sides of the bowl,
rippled surface extending
as far as it can, before settling

back into the smooth guise
which lulls everyone into thinking
it doesn’t actually reach

all the way to the ocean.

Odysseus Watches HBO

In between jokes
and swearing
Bill Maher questions
the importance of myth
because he doesn’t believe
in belief Since it seems
everything has been
reduced to story
and nothing can be proven
Odysseus drinks
three extra beers
to gauge the impact,
then invites
a lamp outside
to watch the slow seduction
of darkness He tells no one
that tomorrow
he’s planning
to drop an apple
from the balcony,
like this lamp
he casually sends
tumbling over the rail –
shadows spinning
as the cord extends
just far enough
for the filament
to lose its brief
bright argument
with gravity.

Odysseus Surfs the Net

On the web at the hotel, he finds
a video of someone dropping Mentos

into a bottle of Diet Coke The geyser
reminds him of volatile Mount Etna

where the Cyclops Polyphemus hid
until Odysseus plied him with wine

and incinerated his world
with a blazing stake See how

the soda splashes down in bright puddles
because your retinas are intact? Imagine

everything going black, how lava
explains away the future so convincingly

no one thinks to ask why, why
an eye consumed by fire

loses the memory of light
until metaphor is its only future:

stories propagated in flickering images
and words, carrying all that remains

of what was once
the simple, astonishing truth.

Odysseus Turns Off the Lamp

He can just reach it
outside the cocoon
he’s spun from

400 thread-count sheets His fingers twist
the small black knob

and he falls
away from the fading bulb,
retinas burning

with the afterimage
of more light
he can’t catch

in cupped hands Linen wings
spread beneath

but can’t carry him
anywhere
except the edges

of this empty bed.