Aphelion Issue 301, Volume 28
December 2024 / January 2025
 
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The Minotaur

(a Tribute to W. H. Auden)

by Eric Robert Nolan


A maze was not enough
To daunt the truly dauntless,
Those for whom the turns
Were negotiable after a while,

Those whose cunning and guile
Found the corridors hauntless.
Euclid, they had learned.
Geometry was their Love.

The rabble blustered in,
As rabbles are wont to do.
Each made his feckless way
To dead ends and to death.

Each with his final breath
Cresting his lips, construed
His want of food that day
Unequal to his sin.

The copulation of
Maddened Pasiphae
Produced Asterion,
Devourer of Men.

The Gate would open. Then,
Along the corridors long,
Those who found their way
Still died for Minos' love.

Monstrosities submitted
By Gods, monstrous themselves
Will kill the men of wit
As surely as the dull.

The terrible head of a bull,
Sinew, sweat and grit,
Slew the Greeks by twelves,
Atrocities committed.

The dullards and well read
Fell equally under his hand
And were the monster's feast
In the Labyrinth at dusk.

Lo!, the smell of musk!
The body of a man!
The visage of a beast!
Fear and a broad brown head.


© 2014 Eric Robert Nolan

Eric Robert Nolan's debut novel is the postapocalyptic science fiction story, 'The Dogs Don't Bark In Brooklyn Any More.' It was published by Dagda Publishing on November 19th, 2013, and is available at Amazon.com both in paperback and for Kindle. This will be the first of a series of books entitled 'The Wolf War Saga.'

Eric's poetry and short stories have been featured by Dagda Publishing, Every Day Poets, Every Day Fiction, Illumen, Dead Beats Literary Blog, Aphelion Magazine, Dead Snakes, Tales of the Zombie War, The Bright Light Cafe, The International War Veterans' Poetry Archive, and elsewhere. His poems were also included in anthology format in Dagda Publishing's 'Threads' in September 2013. Eric's science fiction/horror short story, 'At the End of the World, My Daughter Wept Metal,' was published in January 2014 in Dagda's short story anthology, 'All Hail the New Flesh.' For more of Eric's work, please see https://ericrobertnolan.wordpress.com/.

Find more by Eric Robert Nolan in the Author Index.

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