LOST ON ME (HEADCASE)

LOST ON ME (HEADCASE)

the gods did it
so wanted to fuck with me

last day
before i left England
to journey
to South
Africa

apartheid
South Africa
some sixty
two
  years ago

threw the book at me
(two of them actually)
hurling them
     from the top of
a wardrobe
(direct hits
  on my cranium in
both cases)

later, in these very books,
I would find
      parallels,
Polyphemus tragically blinded
by Nobody
throwing boulders at that
taunting Achean hero
to avenge
     his mutilation

or Ajax throwing rocks
at the Trojans as battle became
brutal
   beneath the city walls,
the fate of
all Ilium
   hanging in the balance

of course, being only eleven,
this symbolism
was lost
     on me
and Homer’s Iliad and
the other one
had, no effect on me, were
lost on me

about to sail the wine dark sea
myself
      they did not
impact my life at all

amusing them that in their hubris
they thought
     they might reduce me
to a blind poetry headcase