Telemachus

Telemachus

“Oh Pallas Athena—

my goddess guide!"

—Francois de Salignac

de La Mothe-Fenelon

Les Adventures de Telemaque

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After beating her up—

My so-called Odysseus

Distraught father didn’t

Know what to do

Back from Korea—

His wife wanting a

Divorce, his honor

Lost and his family

_____________________

So he dumped us—

All in his Corvette

And sped to his

Parents place

Young F-86 pilot—

Not knowing what to do

Except dump us three

Boys and then what?

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Adultery is nothing new—

How many Odysseus men

Have gone thru the same

Thing as war-torn husbands

Homer does his hero-trip—

Whether Iliad or Odyssey

The blind poet telling his

Classic story for whoever

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I was too young to be—

Telemachus only in the

Fourth grade and there

Wasn’t any Pallas Athena

There’s nothing more—

Spectral and incredibly lonely

As an evening in the high plains

Of Kansas with no parents…

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The Prairie leaned down us—

I couldn’t sleep I couldn’t think

I couldn’t do anything except

Exist in the lost RFD moment…

There was nothing to recover—

My boyhood was over and I

Didn’t exist anymore other than

Pretending night was day

________________________

I challenged myself—

In the only way I knew how and

That was my own journey into

The darkness that he went thru

The Nothingness of Exile—

From one generation to the next

Marriage after marriage failures

With or without Trojan Wars