‘Twelve Labors More, Part I’: A Poem by Evan Mantyk

Twelve Labors More

Part I. And There He Was

I.

And there he was! Great Socrates who knew
That I knew nothing, at least that’s what he said
In perfect English, never mind just how
(Perhaps it’s just a dream inside my head?).
He stumbled on my poorly placed extension
Cord but thanks to his big Gandolf staff
He gained his footing, sneered at my desk work,
And spoke again without another gaffe:
“There’s greater things I have in store for you,
Young man, beyond just grading endless papers.
Something along the lines of good and true,
But more adventurous, with madcap capers.”

“Madcap capers?” I asked

“Oh yes,” he said,
“But first you’ll need some help. Some sidekicks who
Can bail you out when situations get sticky . . .
I think I have a pair that just might do.”
He scanned my shelf of motley classic texts
And knocked his staff upon my Iliad.

“Achilles! That jackanapes. He’ll do just fine.
A ticket out of Hades, his name of mud
Restored… perhaps, if all goes well. Let’s see.
Where is it? Aha!”

He knocked my Henry IV.

“John Falstaff, he shall come along as well
And maybe one day when you sally forth,
He will redeem himself and earn some wings
So strong they’ll lift his boundless belly up.”

Too mystified, my mouth agape, eyes wide,
As Socrates sipped from my cold tea cup.
He turned, then squarely knocked me on my forehead.

At once I opened up my eyes to find
That I had nodded off again as darkness
Gathered round my house, between the blinds,
Like ignorance that separates men’s minds.

II.

The next day, when the dream was all forgotten,
I took a walk around my neighborhood.
It was mid-Autumn, nearly Halloween;
I noticed more than ever that there stood,
As decoration, giant skeletons;
Some eight feet tall and others even more.
So odd. I didn’t recall such monstrous sights
When once I tricked-or-treated door-to-door.

And then when all was quiet in the streets
I suddenly saw a neighbor’s front door crack.
Out walked a well-built man who had his face
Full-painted like a skull; he held a sack.
This placid midday scene seemed out of step
With him, and stranger still two other doors
Of neighbors’ homes cracked open and two more
With skull paint came as if completing chores.
All brought their sacks around a skeleton.
I stared until one looked me in the eye,
But I instinctively withdrew my gaze
And kept on walking till I shuffled by
The wall of bushes separating lawns.
I couldn’t quite resist and turned to spy
On this macabre trio’s gathering.
I heard them as their words began to fly.
It was half-marvel, half-horror to my eye.

III.

“Hardworking brothers! How have you fared this day?”
The seeming leader spoke with devilish glee.
“Not better than I have, I think. I found
Not one, not two, but, can you believe it, three!
Three hu-bags on their phones all afternoon.
Not budging for at least an hour—”

“No!”

“I did, young Isudice. I sucked
Their vital essence with a steady flow.”

“Great Abortino, may I interrupt?
I saw a hu-bag pass just now, who seemed
To look me in the eye—”

“Impossible!”
Their boss, this Abortino, almost screamed.
“Most likely he looked through you at a pumpkin.
No mortal eyes can see us. No. And no
Immortals walked these parts for many years.
But you, Yu from Asia, maybe don’t know.
Don’t let that worry you and let us start
Our Ceremony of the Growing Dead.”

All three in unison began to chant;
In dark and evil strains, skull faces said,

Breathe of death calling out
Stronger, larger, yelling, shout!
Twist your voices, rot your core;
Remember life can be a bore.
Death is what we advocate;
Death is what we emulate.
Better have those babies killed;
Suicide is fine if willed;
Euthanasia can be nice;
Life is merely rolling dice.
Have no hope while dying young
Smoke some dope and lose a lung.
While your life is leaving you
Strength and power we accrue.
While your mind is not so clear
We are drawing ever near,
Stealing essence from your being
Silently, without your seeing.
Demons growing everywhere,
Witches flying through the air—
Hu-bags don’t know what we’ve done
Even underneath the sun!

They opened up their sacks and out of them
There flew, a bluish light that rose up high
Around the Halloween-time skeleton
And entered its forehead, which lit each eye
And brought to life the lawn-prop standing there.
In fact, I looked around and noticed change
Had happened everywhere, on all the lawns
Where creepy decorations were—how strange!
The blow-up vampire pegged at 9 Oak Street
Now started dripping blood. Lawn spiders grew.
Some guy came out and hung a fake dead body.
Flags orange and black replaced red, white, and blue.

The thing spoke out as if it were a witch
With raspy female tones that grind the ear:
“Well done my children! How indeed we’ve grown
From Halloween to Halloween each year.
Who still remembers what All Saints’ Day is,
Or that we are its eve and come from it?
Columbus Day lacks all the fanfare now;
Indigenous People’s Day gave it a hit.
So, too, Thanksgiving loses all its meaning
And we gain ground, unstoppable we rise
Until, until… but what is that I sense?
I feel another set of probing eyes . . .”

From where I crouched behind the neighbor’s bush
I felt the Skeleton Witch train eyes on me.
I started walking, almost running home,
Until I felt quite certain I was free.
I looked back where I came from and saw nothing,
Half unsure if I had dreamt it all.
Then turning round to face my house I saw
The three skull faces blocking like a wall
And holding blades so large that I felt small.

IV.

Their scythes seemed hungry, slowly drawing near,
When Abortino spoke, “We’ll deal with you.
They’ll think you had a heart attack when we
Have pierced your beating hu-bag heart right through.”
The Skeleton Witch behind and them in front,
I didn’t know which way to run when he
Leaned in to strike. But just as he did so
A darting shaft almost too quick to see
Flew into Abortino’s chest, and flung him back
As if he were a toy. Instead of blood,
Blue essences flew up and out of him.
Then darting like the spear of wood
That came before him, there, a warrior charged.
Bronze-clad, with helmet clearly Greek, sword drawn,
He rushed into the fray, decapitating
Isudice upon a neighbor’s lawn.
I felt a little bad for Yu from Asia;
He didn’t stand a chance against this force
Of one. Yu’s swing was blocked by a round shield;
A long and blank expression like a horse
Spread on his face while he was being gutted.

The warrior, business done, limped by, regained
His gleaming spear, which now became his crutch.
He looked me up and down with mild disdain;
Although his words were courteous enough:
“My lord, I’m at your service,” he said and bowed.

I thought about it and concluded: “Achilles!
So Socrates has plucked you from the crowd
Of ghosts and fields of asphodel in Hades?”

“He promised me a path clear to Olympus.
Like Hercules, upon completing his
Twelve Labors, flying to heaven on a nimbus.”

Achilles spoke and I recalled he was
The King of Phthia, Commander of
The Myrmidons—a lord in his own right.
And this explained the gloom that he gave off.
And also I recalled The Odyssey,
In which he, stuck in Hades, seemed to sob
And say, “Odysseus, I’d much prefer
To do a simple farm hand’s servile job
Than stay and rule among the worthless dead.”
Perhaps he now regretted saying that.
Perhaps he limped because Paris’s arrow
Had pierced his heel amidst the Greek gods’ spat.

But all my thoughts were interrupted by
The Skeleton Witch now shrieking in dismay
And casting spells to summon all her forces
From every front-yard Halloween display.
Inflatable creatures, now alive, approached.
And hopping jack-o-lanterns came for us.
Soon every skeleton was lumbering over,
And all looked nothing less than murderous.

Then on a crowd of evil decorations
A sea of flames broke out. Achilles and I
Looked up to see a rather chubby knight
Now flinging liquor with lit fuses high
Up in the air and watching them crash down.
He said, “My masters, now this is a battle.”
The jumping jack-o-lanterns screamed as they
Were being melted to a gooey puddle.

“Is that…” I said but was cut off; the horde
Of creatures yelled out all at once “Falstaff!”
His last one thrown, he waddled up to me
And after giving me a jolly full laugh
Said, “Good Prince Nar, lost in your neighbor’s house
I found these bottles just collecting dust
And thought that I would put them to good use.
But first, to make sure that they had my trust,
I tried a little and, to my surprise,
The taste repulsed my throat—I could not breathe.
I tried another and another; all
The same. I started, I’ll admit, to seethe
Until I recollected what he said,
Good Socrates, who brought me here and told
Me that you are my ticket out of Limbo.
And so I got as many as I could hold
And hurried over. I had seen this trick
Used on the French once at Harfleur, Prince Nar—”

“What is that name you call me?” I inquired.

“Well Socrates said that is who you are:
The Narador, it’s Spanish I would wager…”

I couldn’t further contemplate this puzzle,
For a crowd of plastic vampire bats
Were circling around us, keen to guzzle
Up our blood. Achilles easily
Had knocked off larger decorations that came
But little bats who moved in swarms weren’t his
Forte. I surveyed this whole losing game
And saw not far away the Skeleton Witch
Conducting bats like deadly instruments.
But never did her leg bones move I noted,
And so I headed for those ligaments.
So while Achilles and John Falstaff fought
Or cowered back, respectively of course,
I snuck behind the Skeleton Witch and tore
Her femur out. She crashed with heavy force!
Her ghostly, high-pitched shriek went dull and hoarse.

V.

And there I was. The crumbled decoration
Was at my feet, but no one else was there.
I saw the flashing police car that drove
On the main road. I then became aware
Of eyes on me inside the house and words
That someone spoke intensely to a phone.
No more Achilles, Falstaff, or the bats.
I was, for better or for worse, alone,
And started running from the sirens’ tone.

Evan Mantyk teaches literature and history in New York and is Editor of the Society of Classical Poets. His most recent books of poetry are Heroes of the East and West, and a translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.