Hooking Up Marine Stereo

Dear


Telemachus
the Trojan War has ended. I forget who won.
The Greeks, it should be: the Greeks, who else,
can leave many dead in a strange land ...
Anyway, the way I bring home is that lengthens
too.
Like Poseidon, while wasting our time, had dilated
space.
I do not know where I am and what I see before me.
Apparently, an island, dirty, shrubs,
houses, grunting of pigs, a garden
abandoned, some Queen, grass and stones ...
Telemachus, dear, indeed
all islands resemble one another
when the journey is so long: the brain and
loses track of the waves,
the eye, both smeared horizon, begins to mourn,
the meat of the water seals the ear.
no longer remember how the war ended,
or how old you are today, I remember. Become

man, Telemachus, and grows. Only
gods know if we are to find. Nor
now there are the boy stopped
to which those bulls.
Today, but for Palamedes, would be by your side.
But maybe it's better that way because without me you have escaped
evils Oedipus
and in your dreams, Telemachus, ignore sin. Joseph Brodsky


From "Do not come after us the deluge" (Anthology 1960-1996)
Ricardo San Vicente version