Wayne Karlin
Coming Home
Lashed to his mast, his back to wood again as in the Horse,
the dead screaming and swirling like furies around his head,
he tried to dream of an island where he had never been.
His mind broke like a ship from the pull of the Sirens and
he leaned forward straining against the rope and felt the splinters
from the mast unsheathing themselves from his shoulders,
easing out like the cries of the dead.
“Lately, in my 78th year, flooded with memories I thought I’d put to rest, I’ve been turning to poetry. A number of my poems have turned to Odysseus, that universal veteran forever coming home from war, facing demons and temptations and descending in the middle of his journey to commune with the dead.” —Wayne Karlin
Wayne Karlin is the author of eight novels and three non-fiction books. He has received two Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Paterson Prize in Fiction, the Juniper Prize for Fiction, and the Vietnam Veterans of American Excellence in the Arts Award. He served in the Marine Corps in Vietnam.