The Odyssey – Poem Packet
Calypso * Peter Davison
She found him facing out into the fog
At the edge of the sea, stooping, winnowing
Stones with all the care of the demented,
Hurling them into the murk, low along
The surface, skipping them like petrels.
He wandered by the shore, halting and stooping,
Leaning abruptly for additional
Hates to send spinning out to sea.
She watched form the cliff over his restlessness
And ached to hold him in her arms – held
Herself away from him, for an embrace
Would only remind his body of its bruises.
Hobbling a step, stooping, sorting the stones,
Hurling them again, as though he hoped
To force them, slippery beneath the sea,
To draw him after them, he threw and threw.
The shore wind whipped the bracken by the path,
Pressed out against the fog which yielded to it
And took it and closed and gave no ground.
A woman could do nothing for him now,
Though she had know for months that this was coming –
Long before he guessed, even before
She herself could have put it into words –
His occupation gone, his enterprise swallowed.
The tide was out, the stones lay high and dry.
Terns chirruped in the fog along the shore.
the fog pressed on the land a little closer
And she could scarcely see him now, while he
Would never look back to where she stood behind him,
Had watched him strive, delude himself, and fail,
Had know all his evasions and deceits,
His minor infidelities, his hopes
That this time shabbiness would go unnoticed.
The only way to show her love for him
Was learning how to stand unseen
Until he chose to notice her – to laugh
Or storm or touch her breast or ask for food
And, though she was invisible, to smile for her.
Now in the fog he’d wandered farther off
Than she had ever lost him, yet she still
Was more aware of him and his despair
Than fog and sea and wind and stones together.
And so she turned, knowing herself helpless,
Leaving her man to men’s devices, and the wind
Struck at her face as she walked weeping home.
The Odyssey – Poem Packet
The Island * Anselm Hollo
*
nice place ya got here
the messenger said
to her whose island
it was
but the boss
give an order
let the guy sail
back to his own
*
there he sat
by the shore
broken nose
missing teeth
old dog
thinking of elsewhere
as always
traveling hard in his head
*
came up from the cave
patted him told him
time now
to go
“who said I wanted to go?”
Penelope * Dorothy Parker
In the pathway of the sun,
In the footsteps of the breeze,
Where the world and the sky are one,
He shall ride the silver seas.
He shall cut the glittering wave.
I shall sit at home, and rock;
Rise, to heed a neighbor’s knock;
Brew my tea, and snip my thread;
Bleach the linen for my bed.
They will call him brave.
The Odyssey – Poem Packet
Siren Song * Margaret Atwood
This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:
the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see the bleached skulls
the song nobody knows
because anybody who has heard it
is dead, and the others can’t remember.
Shall I tell you the secret
and if I do, will you get me
out of this bird suit?
I don’t enjoy it here
squatting on this island
looking picturesque and mythical
with these two feathery maniacs,
I don’t enjoy singing
this trio, fatal and valuable.
I will tell the secret to you,
to you, only to you.
Come closer. This song
is a cry for help: Help me!
Only you, only you can,
you are unique
at last. Alas
it is a boring song
but it works every time.
An Ancient Gesture*
Edna St. Vincent Millay
I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
Penelope did this too.
And more than once: you can’t keep weaving all day
And undoing it all through the night;
Your arms get tired, and the back of your neck gets tight;
And along towards morning, when you think it will never be light,
And your husband has been gone, and you don’t know where, for years,
Suddenly you burst into tears;
There is simply nothing else to do.
And I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
This is an ancient gesture, authentic, antique,
In the very best tradition, classic, Greek;
Ulysses did this too.
But only as a gesture,--a gesture which implied
To the assembled throng that he was much too moved to speak.
He learned it from Penelope…
Penelope who really cried.
The Odyssey – Poem Packet
Circe’s Power
* Louise Gluck
I never turned anyone into a pig.
Some people are pigs, I make them
look like pigs.
I’m sick of your world
that lets outside disguise the inside.
Your men weren’t bad men;
undisciplined life
did that to them. As pigs,
under the care of
me and my ladies, they
sweetened right up.
Then I reversed the spell,
showing you my goodness
as well as my power. I saw
we could be happy here,
as men and women are
when their needs are simple. In the same breath,
I foresaw your departure,
your men with my help braving
the crying and pounding sea. You think
a few tears upset me? My friend,
every sorceress is
a pragmatist at heart; nobody
sees essence who can’t
face limitation. If I wanted only to hold you
I could hold you prisoner.
Penelope
* James Harrison
For Ken
Oh, I have no illusions as to what
he’s been up to all these years –a sea
nymph here, a minor goddess there, and a free
for all with the odd monster to give the plot
the necessary epic tone. Not
that I’m saying he goes out of his way to be
led astray. It happens quite naturally,
I’m sure. But it happens.
So, since suitors squat
on my doorstep, why so squeamish? In the first
place because it’s the property they’re out
to get, with me as an afterthought perhaps.
Then they’re so callow. But mostly, having nursed
forbearance for twenty years, I’m not about
to have him forgiving me my only lapse.
The Odyssey – Poem Packet
Nausicaa
* Judits Vaiciunaite (Translated from the Lithuanian by Irene Pogozelskyte Suboszewski)
“Hail, traveler, when you return
to your own country, see that you
do not forget me.”
I’ve never kissed a man yet. My voice is like a wave.
And my flesh has not been touched by male hands.
Yet I have hungered for one such as you.
We were both dazed from exertion and surprise.
Both cursed and blessed be the ball we tossed around,
having spread the linen out to dry,
that ancient golden morning when two funny mules had drawn my little cart. . .
* * *
I am Nausicaa. I am descended from sea-faring ancestors.
There’s something in me of a sinking ship fortuitously met.
My mother spins a thread of merriment, of purple wool.
And my father’s open house is tall and generous.
So under ancient skies we’re raising toasts both royally and humbly
in honor of a lost and unexpected guest. . .
Why do you hide your tears under the mantle,
we are not trying to interrogate you – who are mighty, mysterious and free.
* * *
I melt into the column against which I lean . . .
Let it remain a secret how I stood alone in the great hall,
for none will ever know what I was feeling then,
as I will not confess it even to myself:
I love you, Odysseus.
You are Odysseus
* Linda Pastan
You are Odysseus
returning how each evening
tentative, a little angry.
And I who thought to be
one of the Sirens (cast up
on strewn sheets
at dawn)
hide my song
under my tongue –
merely Penelope after all.
Meanwhile the old wars
go on, their dim music
can be heard even at night.
You leave each morning,
soon our son will follow.
Only my weaving is real.
The Odyssey – Poem Packet