Swashbuckling mounts the odyssey
when blood-ties are cast off
to wing out dancing amongst the stars
the dipper star-dusting the brow
and Orion's club drubbing fell scorpion
constellations 

How halcyon, the nerve that pushes
a salty sailor to lick
the nail of Poseidon's thumb
pumping blood to chase
intruding omens from the vision
of sought Atlantean horizons
 
By a celestial fiat
the drive of the roving is electric
dining at the table of Sinbad
to map out hazardous Olympus heights
and trap-door skeleton crevasses
cyclops to swallow armies
 
But as the raptor motors up with wings 
above the storms that bully the ground
jet-trailing smiles between cumulus scowls
siestas in the native turbulent skies
but sunk back down to land 
with fading peregrine eye for
only when soaring and unblocked
may the warrior shine





3.0 10/10
 © Brian Peter Hodgkinson