WARN ICARUS.
A life in the shadow of Hadrian’s labyrinth;
our legacy built on shipyards and coal.
Brothers bleed for Pasiphae’s mercy.
Mud on the doorstep and ash in the snow.
How many times did Icarus wonder
at the sound of the creature that rumbled below?
The boy whose world began and ended in that workshop,
his skyline a mass of granite and stone.
In our lullabies we heed the warning
of the sun-kissed boy; that child of ambition.
Twisting. Writhing.
Saltwater and brine.
Burned forever on the father’s memory
in a flash of canary yellow,
against the flurry of feathers and ash.
I’ve watched mothers on the fire days
raising whiskey glasses to the sky
for the children among the constellations
who never returned as men from the mine.
We were raised on the stories of what’s under the labyrinth;
the monstrous creature that trades blood for coal.
Icarus knew and each of us know
there are things worse than death
and they live in the stone.
Who could blame him for running?
The bitter waves are a better end
than the fury of gas or the end of a rope.
Few who are born in the walls of Crete
live to know the tragedy of growing old.
Lucy Atkinson is a poet and playwright based in the North East of England. She is currently completing a PhD at Durham University working on a historical novel about the Newcastle Witch Trials. Her poetry has been widely published both online and in print in magazines such as Acumen, Agenda, Ink Sweat and Tears, among many others. Her debut play As It Was was published in 2019. She can be found on twitter @Wordsbylucy