Philoctetes Lyrics


I guess I’ll call it sickness gone

You remember - my ankle’s stinking wound

The two-portaled cave and dichroic cup

The work of a sorry craftsman

As Milton descended

Perpendicular, swift as thought,

Negation’s serpent flew

Time’s arrow loosed from a silver bow

Foully cast upon this solitude

To live without deliverance

Bewildered by each want as it rises

In this sick estate on Lemnos’ cape

I put myself into hiding

Like the corpse of a beast

The shadow of a vapor

In this narrow house, free from desire

There are three Heracles - the god, the shade,

the stranger from Colonia Commodiana

Who in this mirror is calling

To commit an old bow to new war

To harrow Ilion

Within the hylic void

Within October’s horse

Within the weaver’s womb

But now my friends you’re here

Like sunlight following sleep

As did Kronos’ children

All that proceeds returns

The coming night unweaves the work of day

Ten years of pain, ten years of homecoming

The underearth is past, the horizon future

The sea like a mirror shaking