Rivage

The harbour fumes, a cauldron
for the furies of the sea,
where nothing holds,
no semblance keeps
its shape or its identity;
vapours drifting,
limestone streaming spume
like spurts of asses' milk,
the demons of the air
in full cry, hurling
gulls about the sky,
as all the ancient deities,
disgorged out of the labyrinth,
survey the pandemonium,
the bull-vaulters look on in awe,
wasp-waisted maidens, slender youths,
gold tendrils gleaming in their braids,
struck speechless by Poseidon's rage,
more fearsome than the Minotaur,
and they so young, so chaste, so brave,
the shape-shifter would change their fate,
and turn his horns away, disarmed,
transforming cataclysmic force
to dolphin, starfish, squid, seahorse,
droplets of primeval froth…

Priestesses garlanded with snakes
perform their chthonic rituals,
while water tears at parapets
and octopus writhe over pithoi;
rabid tide and tempest
inundate Minoan masonry,
as on the quays, the elements
rouse atavistic memory…