Phlebas

Spring 2010

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,

had felt the cool salt breeze upon his handsome face,

Washing off the ashes of Tyre,

and thanked his gods they’d survived,

Even as the great city burned,

and Alexander bled the nobility...

They had slipped the blockade,

running on muffled oars,

with what stores and riches they could carry.

It was better to be free and alive, he thought

and it was, for his forefathers would be crucified on the strand by morning...

But that night, still in sight of the island to the south

the smoke rising in columns

from the sack

Poseidon, in his temper unleashed the maelstrom

and as the trireme cracked and splintered,

as the water bubbled and foamed through the hull

promising death to the

slaves still chained to their oars

Phlebas looked to windward, into the maw of the on-coming wave

high as the walls of his beloved city

Rising, lurching, hungry white breaking upon the crest

We are lost, he thought, as he passed the ages of his youth

entering the whirlpool.