The Flight of Icarus.
(The Lament for Icarus ; Herbert Draper).
The fall of Icarus has a legion of metaphorical interpretations...so I will add mine in that I believe those ancient Greeks were a bit more basic in their meanings and I too will go for the basic instinct in man and interpret the myth as a desire for the erotic and in delving too deep into the pleasures of female erotica, the young man...indeed ANY man will risk falling from grace and drowning in a despair of sorrowful loss..
The Flight of Icarus.
Wash over me balm of my soul,
Wash over me as sea-waves over shoal,
While I lay me here in my nights alone,
In refuge from waging a long war done,
The burns and wounds that you see,
Are remnants of a battle so, so weary.
What make of man does this man become,
Who has flown much too close to the Sun,
A fool, a jester, maybe a warrior undone?
Like Icarus whose vanity drew him too,
Seeking joys and elation calling him also.
Songs and arising cries from Siren’s Isles,
The warnings given by his father and elder men,
On deaf ears they fell for thrill of such flight
Of fancy, hungering toward erotic nights,
Flew him likewise too close to that Sun,
Too close to the heat of a woman in cheongsam .
Whose warmth and comforts coaxed him on,
To forsake all wisdom, all reason abandoned,
Flattered his manhood, melted all caution,
So to lose free flight, tumble, fall and drown.
Such is the fate avowed men so disdained,
Rejected, betrayed, or perhaps disowned.
Icarus, thou foolish youth indeed,
Were you not warned, why not heed,
Caution your desire, temper your needs,
Lest such sad fortune comfort thine enemies?
But alas such promises of sensual delight,
Lure greater by far than wisdom’s pale enlight’,
And the enticements of such wonderous flesh,
In wanton display will never redress,
What drives a man toward her state of undress,
So yes….
What becomes a man as a man so scorned,
Who has traded home, heart and hearth,
For the desires of a woman would be him done,
Recklessly, foolishly, again, and again…
Flying too close.. MUCH too close to that Sun?
No comments:
Post a Comment