Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus Poem by Ernest Hilbert

Smiling sadly with beer beneath canopy
Of canaried gold and song, so much cold wind
Gone out into dark cove of oar and sail,

Embarked with ships and cries in high rigging—
After years, storm relaxed, drew instead
Ink for blood: myth and life balanced at length,

Rescued from history by ruin—scrubbed yacht
Then scrapped hulk, and heir to what life compelled,
Assembled in shadow of upswarm and tarnish,

Sitting in sunshine, rudder severing map,
Deus est sphaera infinita—
Course into hollowed sky, recall all years

Before this flight, in a field between armies:
Drink this beer together as friends, freely.
I have no part open to you, or you to me,

Passing this life in peace or in war—
Just as what music survives acquires
Its territory from silence, so this.