To Poseidon

To Blue-haired Poseidon I call
Earth-shaker, Sea-Ruler, Olympian
Father of thundering horse-hooves
Bringer of crashing waves

To Poseidon the Host, I call
Your halls have housed many guests:
Aphrodite
Who grew to fair womanhood in the belly of Tethys
Dionysos
Who fled there from murderous wrath
To remember himself with your handmaidens
Those who sail
For you bring foul sea currents or fair
and those who are lost at sea
And pray you to return them safely home
The drowned, your share of the dead,
Who attend you
Until Life
With it’s irresistible song
Calls them forth again.

To Poseidon, the Occult, I call
Secret keeper are you
Who sired Despoina: Her name is whispers
Whose vaults conceal ancient unknown treasures
Guarded safe against the fires of alien piety

To Poseidon I call, Who Enforces Vows
You built up Troy for the Trojans
But the promised payment they never made.
Thus, at your command
Dreaded sea monsters
Nightmares drawn from the thick shadows of the deep
Sucking tendrils and chitinous claws
Tore down walls unpaid for.
Sudden was your wrath,
Terrifying and costly,
Making their ilk
A by-word among would-be oath breakers.

To Poseidon, Martial King, I call
Mighty is your army
Spirits who haunt sea-caves
Sirens who drown the unwary
Tritones, fearsome and sharp-toothed
Charybdis and Skulla
Rise up at your command
Would any but a madman wage war
Without your blessing?
What Fool would challenge your Kingdom?

O Poseidon, make pleasant the troubled sea
Stay the wrath of volcano and caldera
With cooling waters
Restrain the Earthquake
Turn, instead, your fearsome nature
To defend those who build up your name
That we may live and be free
To sing you yet another song.