Those of you who know my work will know that I like to play with mythological reference and (sometimes obscure) plays on words. This is one of them, and written for someone (several of them, actually) who’ll likely never see this:

Fate On Hold

And do you know him?
Sure, you must have seen him
Even met him, or his kin.
Not a quiet life, his – soaring and diving
On a platform made of fear and desire
Clinging to the gifts his father gave him
Tattered now, but still part of his definition.

He knows the wet and angry depths,
The steps that falter down
In the wake of flight,
And the moans that escape
Biting his tongue too late
As the fall pulls bile from his wretched throat,
Poison pouring out, thick as blood,
Tearing tender membranes,
Scorching the fingers of those he falls through.

So he thinks: soar! Get as high as you can.
Gall falls transformed from burning heights,
Lights those up-turned faces,
Graces them with the gift of altitudes
While they’re glued to the ground,
Impounded by a lack of wings.

He sings, striving higher,
Feeling as though his sins are scoured
By speed, the shriek of winds,
The glare of the sun.

Never look down,
Eyes fixed on a prize
Eluding fingertips,
Slipping like ice as the heights turn cold,
Boldness freezes in thin air and, hanging there,
Before the wind-rush returns
He’ll hear, like crystal, his father’s voice,
Feel the weight of its message.

But he waves it off, flailing at the words buzzing
And broken he plummets, eyes burning,
Hands clasped to block out the sounds,
The screams he sees as laughter,
The sighs he knows as judgement,
And after: as the waves close over his head
Again, he drowns in the echoes of his own regrets
Until he kicks free of weeds,
To try again to tread the paths
That only Hermes sees,
Heedless of the voice that tells him:
Be a man, and all a man can be.
It is enough.