Richard Encounters the Minotaur

A Work in Progress
20

Ezra plays Apollonius of Rhodes

concocts a dream world of mythology 

Richard arrives in Crete as Theseus

one of the fourteen sent for sacrifice

he’ll meet Ariadne, Minos’ daughter

they will fall in love at first sight

she will help him survive the Minotaur

a man-like creature with a bull’s horned head

Theseus will challenge the Minotaur 

using Ariadne’s cape to goad him

mad making him charge with low horns to gore

calm Theseus facing his wild onslaught

with left arm raised high over blood red cape 

cleanly making the kill, his own escape

Theseus struck with a bullfighter’s skill

using his rapier with deadly skill

then he traced back Ariadne’s thread

finding his way out of that dread labyrinth

through passageways lit with an aureate gleam 

from two golden geese he is carrying

past littered white bones of Athenian youth

gnawed to the marrow by that Minotaur 

starved creature no comfort crazed in a maze

roaming the tunnels incessant for flesh

so, Theseus will emerge triumphant

claim his prize from a dumb-struck despot

sail off home with the young Athenians

taking Ariadne along the way

so, Richard will take H.D. to Naxos

before leaving her stranded on the beach 

he’d been transformed by the Minotaur

become half beast half man because of war 

he came back to her fierce from fighting in France

full of that anger at never ending fear

whom those who lost fathers those who lost sons

never could understand who never were there

then Aldington goes to Paris

meets Nancy Cunard, Sam Beckett et al

around Nancy buzzes the jazz age

she’ll take up the cause of negro’s rights 

endow Samuel Beckett with a cash prize

wherever she was emotions would rise

will it work to have Glenn Hughes be Zeus?

he was an American as was Ezra and H.D.

all the rest will have to play as Brits

has anybody heard of Glenn Hughes?

in that era when Beckett with his poem

dashed from Rue to rue to deposit it

Paris a center of civilized life

attracted all of those we now hold dear

but did they know back then Paris was it

not London not Venice not Reykjavik

economics explains why artists are

found congregating in selected bars

would it be noticed if we fudged the facts

that the Blue Moon tavern did not exist

that Seattle was not a hot place back then

when Glenn Hughes brought Babette back from Paris

we’re making notes for a screenplay

we can invent what they do what they say.

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                   2025