Poem: The Thirteenth Labour of Hercules

The Thirteenth Labour of Hercules

They tell of beasts of legend
as if they were dominions of the past
from an age of deity and fire,
whose monsters tremble with earthquake
and faces that turn tides
whose pets command oral tradition
passed down from one smoky fire
to another, shadows upon the wall
acting out prisoner and prison,
both captivating narrative and
a narrative of captivity.
Plato told us so much, at least
to those of us who dug.
Those of us, lonely and forgotten
who never knew Popularity
who developed gout and arthritis
as we waited to become kings,
lying on our backs, our necks craned
to the next page, a Republic unfolding.
Hydra, Bull, Stable, Cerberus,
fictions that beg time and again
a little ignorance, dowsing for moral
spent shackles in shadow.