Aegeus
The dark was thick and hard to bear,
Beneath the stifling summer night.
I paced along the battlements:
A ghost awash with eldritch light.
I dared to think of where he was;
In a foreign palace, bound
With biting ropes around his wrists,
Herded, prodded underground
Into a hall with no escape
All blackened with the rot of death,
Hounded by two poison eyes,
By gory horns and bloody breath.
He’s lost inside the labyrinth,
My son, my son, my frightened boy.
Oh gods, great gods, take me instead!
It’s my old life you should destroy.
The waves throw dribble on the beach,
There’s shapes amidst the bilge and foam.
Oh silver tide, so bright and vast,
Please carry my son swiftly home.
White sails shall bear my happiness,
Black sails the abyss.
But black dawns on the horizon,
Black sails burst through the mist.
Fate puts its knife deep in my heart
And wrenches it and twists.
There’s lancing pain within my eyes,
Cold growing like a cyst.
******
A white shape plunges from the battlements,
A snowdrop into the mouth of the sea.
Theseus frowns, turns away:
The black sail stares back.
