The Ilitchiad.

Prologue.

Let anger be your song, the anger of the basement dweller,
Cohabitant of moss, mildew and Logitech G19;
Dwell upon the bitter loss of Bobby Feller,
And crowded losses in Texas and Town of Bean.

Who brought on this central dispute? What God
Scorned Rules of Law and left ope a window,
In manner much more calculating than slipshod,
When the frozen winds of April did rage and blow;
And brought the vivid flush of hot blood to those once cold and lean?
What caused this yoked team to buy, that had once been a seller?
Will this prove magnanimous, or mean?
Will we blame the tale, or the teller?

Those Gods now deeply sleep, as Gods will do once dark pot’s been stirred.
Those hatchlings of dark plots now ride to the wharf, their saddles burred.
By those docks assemble the stout men of the Strait,
All cherished and guarded by Anne, of David’s line;
She, long enmeshed in her city’s fate,
Has been charged by Zeus himself to choose nine
Among them to people Leylandeus’s ship.
There stands trim Austyanax Ajax at ship’s prow;
Boeschius the Lesser, with auburn fringe on a pouty lip;
Rayburnum the Middling; Maggliomedes with furrowed brow.

Standing at starboard, with vacant gaze:
Peraltus of Short. Victoram prays.

Alongside, a separate ship is stocked for tall Verlander,
And another set aside for the brave Miggus Cabrerum.
(Their contracts decree their road quarters, in candor,
Shall be all their own, for they might bring a harem.)
Following all of these fortified floats:
Vessels commanded by Caesar the Small,
And on board are all manner of fish, fowl and goats,
The stuff needed to feed these stout men who play ball.

The fleet leaves the Windsor channel, into the Aerian Sea,
Pushed by the winds of Aeolus, son of Poseidon; ‘tis he,
Poseidon, who harbors hate, or more,
For men who, on Aerie’s southern shore,

Once caused the orange waves of the river of Cleave to erupt
Into golden, leaping flames, inimical to his design.
From then onward, his wrath has caused him to corrupt
All Cleave’s hopes, where his will and his might may align:
Phipps’s flings found fins five times, it is said;
Unwise Counsell and Renterius led
Poseidon’s spear-faced Marlin to leap from the dead
And claim a crown that should balance on Wahoo’s head.

Atop a bluff, staring out to sea, Actamemnon waits, silver fedora flashing in the slashing sun.