FLY LOW WHEN YOU’RE NOT APT TO SOARING: The Rise and Fall of Icarus

(I wrote this 37- verse retelling of the tale of Icarus and Daedelus when I was in the 12^th for a poetry competition. I didn’t submit it at the time because I deemed it horribly self-indulgent. Since self-indulgence is the watchword of the blogosphere. Here it is…)

Minos the great king of Crete
Managed a marvelous feat
No one knows how
He mixed a man with a cow
And got a treacherous beast with bull’s feet.

Minos, he built him a cage
But in a fit of ox-like rage
The man-thing broke out
With a bovine shout.
The mutant had come of age.

Minos didn’t know what to do
The beast beat his guards black and blue
First he would beat them
Then he would eat them
He would hang up their uniforms too.

Now Minos was in a quandary
About the Mino’s dirty laundry
Should he tie up the beast
Or let him continue his feast
And let him devour all and sundry?

The sovereign was awfully vexed
What should the man do next?
He decided to get
A home for his pet
And put out ads for the best architects

Among the men who applied
The king, Daedelus espied
He passed every test
Yes, he was the best
His genius could not be denied

Icarus was Daedelus’ son
A stupid sonuvagun
Being so smart
One should have the art
To procreate a brighter one

But Daedelus was stuck with the fool
Too dull to pass out of school
He had wool in his head
His grey cells were dead
But he thought himself awfully cool

He had the degenerate genes of his mater
Daedelus would congratulate her
On bearing a child
So willful and wild
Who got all jokes five minutes later

But Daedelus being his dad
Really loved the stupid lad
He decided to take him
Rather than forsake him
And leave him there lonely and sad

So they set out at once for the isle
They traveled many a mile
Daedelus wondered
He thought, and he pondered
How to hold the beast, coarse and vile

While he sat in Knossos and thought
An answer to the enigma he sought
When the answer he found
In leaps and in bounds
He ran to Minos’ court

“Build him a maze dear king!
A maze is just the thing
It’ll hold Mino in
And keep him from sin
A maze is just the thing!”

Minos was extremely delighted
As from his throne he alighted,
“We’ll start work today
For with the pass of each day
My soldiers resign, affrighted”

So the building of the maze began
The greatest in all the land
From the next day’s dawning
Early in the morning
They built it according to plan

If you happen to enter the maze
You’ll wander around for days
You’ll die of starvation
Or harsh mastication
By the Minotaur ravenous and crazed

But the labyrinth has one way out
If you’re stuck, don’t scream, don’t shout
Turn right at every bend
Turn right till the end
You’ll move from within to without

Ariadne, the princess of Crete
Was beautiful, slim and petite
She wasn’t as bad
As the king, her dad
She was cultured, refined and neat

So Daedelus finally decided
In the princess of Crete he confided
Daedelus gave her
The clue that would save her
If she ever got stuck inside it

This caused the king much pain
Minos was crazed and insane
“One must tell the king
Before planning such things!”
And he clamped dad and son in chains

Daedelus had hurt his pride
It hurt him deep inside
“The ruling monarch
The Royal Patriarch,
In him must you confide!”

So Minos thought up a plan
He was a fiendishly devious man
“I’ll send the damn Greek
To the maze for a week.
Let him escape if he can.”

Opening ceremonies are grand
And, as Minos for this one had planned,
Blindfolded and dazed
He threw them in the maze
With their feet tied to their hands

Daedelus was cool and collected
He relaxed, breathed out, and reflected
With a sharp bit of stone
Cut rope, flesh and bone
(But in legends such things are expected)

He had freed them both of their fetters
Their clothes were torn and in tatters
But you wouldn’t mind
If monsters unkind
Were the urgent, pressing matters

About on thing, Minos had been right
Daedelus was awfully bright
He dealt without haste
With the problems he faced
Things would turn out alright

To keep the Minotaur quiet
He was put on a special diet
Of thousands of birds
And cattle in herds
And Greece was asked to supply it

So father and son together
Collected some bones and some feathers
There were masses left over
From chickens and plovers
And plenty of hide to gather

With some wax, among other things
Like glue, some blood, and some string
With feathers and bone
And adhesives alone
They made two pairs of wings

Whatever Orville and Wilbur may say
It was actually on that very day
Man’s first flight
Was before the Wrights
Well, that’s what the Greek legends say

Icarus was overjoyed
With his newly invented toys
He soared and he swooped
He looped the loop
What a reckless, irresponsible boy!

Daedelus, with a weary sigh
Said, “Son, don’t fly too high,
The heat of the day
Will melt wax away
And you will fall down and die.”

But the warning Icarus ignored
As higher and higher he soared
But in 9.8 seconds
As gravity beckons
The fool wasn’t flying no more

He plummeted to the sea
A terrible death died he
Waving and thrashing
Cursing and splashing
He sunk like a biscuit in tea

Morals can make legends boring
But in fact, they’re not worth ignoring
As all others do
This has one too
‘Fly low when you’re not apt to soaring.’

***

Whew!