Ascendit Icarus (AI)

Editor’s Note: In addition to the text of the poem, please enjoy the images of the sculpture that inspired it, by Les Drysdale, which was on display in Fergus, Ontario, as part of the Elora Sculpture Project in 2023. Also, hear a performance of the poem by Marco V Morelli, who recorded the audio as part of his editing process and was encouraged by the author to include it with this publication.

Ascendit Icarus (AI)

Beating of wings, parting air like the seas.
Higher and higher, he ascends beyond Sun.
Flogging vengeance on winds’ presumptuous breeze,
His scorched scorn pretends: Sun’s kingdom undone.

In cold heights the limbs of melody stiffen,
Haltingly danced, numbed tongue of a drunk.
Undecipherable speech from old books gives no succor.
Joyce, Ovid, and Chaucer—a palimpsest of loss…

Whilst we await Divine judgment, transgressions admit—
And we shall call it Justice.

But silent is your wrath. Or we’re too high to hear it?
On holographic wings, Icarus burns past our Earth.
No terrestrial being—but what’s he become?
Symbolic warnings mimed by muted mystes?
Higher—ever-higher!—he ascends without mirth.
Fate, Limit, Necessity—he outruns.
All’s left behind darkly save his companion: “Freedom.”
Freedom from Punishment, and Punishment in Freedom!
—snapping at heels, tearing transhuman flesh,
Screeching, “Onward and upward!” to this writhing mausoleum.

Sweat of transcendence, or tears of mourning?
Frenzied, distorted creature—a blurred image,
Undiscerned and undiscerning.
With his doubled cry, “Onward and upward
—Onward and upward!”