Daedalus and what I've been doing over the holiday

We have had a wonderful holiday at my house, and the days have gone something like this: wake up and take Oscar for a long walk by the river. Think up a new poem or piece of art. Come home, work at the table-writing or painting or doing linocuts. Eat lunch, take nap. Wake up and take Oscar for a walk. repeat.

So this is what I've been working on- a combo image/poem thingie, and the first one is about Daedalus and Icarus of course; every parent secretly fears becoming Daedalus.



Daedalus wakes from a dream of flying
sits up on the side of the bed
and reaches for his cigarettes.

He’s turning into a firebug.
He carries kitchen matches in his pocket.

Sometimes he’ll flick the head of a match
with a thumbnail, bring it
to his nose for a whiff of sulfur.
Or is it phosphorus?
He isn’t sure but it smells like hell, like fire,
Like singed feathers and beeswax.

Another dream of flying
and something’s burning,
honey in a pretty blue sky,
smoking, falling,
cordite and concrete dust,
and his boy running
across a broken landscape
a weapon heavy in his hand