I play the ogre still
for their Sicilian tale,
though I can sing as true
as Tereus’ nightingale.

The laurel at my cave-door
promised second sight:
blinded, I prayed to Orpheus
for music’s inner light.

O my love Galatea,
O river where you ran,
come dapple the long shadow
that follows Moon-Eyed Man.

Beat, beat the anvil
within Hephaestus’ forge:
you’ll not beat the fables
they let Odysseus forge –

those picaroons so eager
to kidnap Homer’s lore,
they’d trade any bag of winds
to reach a foreign shore.

I fed them cheese and lambkins,
they poured me Thracian wine.
But fear of the Unknown
spread like a poison vine.

I weep the eye-hole dry.
I rue the olive bough.
Now no-one is my friend,
as ‘No-One’ was my foe.

O my love Galatea,
O river where you ran,
come dapple the long shadow
that follows Moon-Eyed Man.