The aspiring hero must contend daily    with deliverers of distance    if he is ever to find repose     among the heavenly bodies of constellations.     He has little choice.      He decides not the destination,    merely the vessel,    means, not the end.

He considers first,      his obsessions with interesting people and fresh air.      He may call on a droning cab driver      for travel down such avenues.      They would welcome his company,      but currency is needed      for relationships like those to stay afloat,      and he had so little to spare.      Without that force of wealth in the foreground,      the hero’s choices grew thin like the hair his elders. 

His feet have never failed him though.      His muscled calves can surely carry him,       but they can not satisfy      the constraints of time.

There are the smoking,    furious others,    the giants that live and move quickly underground.    Within these groaning beasts,    whose bellies we mortals willingly enter     with a conviction of convenience,     we are closer together,     so undoubtedly uncomfortable.    We stand or sit,    without cushions or chatter,    as it shuffles along on its path     through the Underworld,     past the dwelling of Zeus’ older brother    whose fortune left him     the lesser of three devils     who cut the world in thirds.     He was given a wasteland to grow up    in unsavory conditions,    along with sovereignty over the dead.    He can’t help   

feeling detached.   

The hero is not made of stone.    A numbness takes hold    over time. With enough exposure to the bony, drafty scenery,         the apathetic cousin of Menis creeps     into his chest,     dulling his senses to some things    while exposing raw nerves to others.     Suddenly,     as though he’d been raised in a rainstorm,     the thunder sound of the underground      may strike his ears without his once wincing.     Yet the smell of souls condemned is all the more     pungent in his nostrils.     Here is the stamp of his resignation,      the meat of his descent.        He and his fellow passengers ride on     in darkness,    drifting      to sleep in their own skin      while the beast swallows and spits them out,   one by one. They are convinced that they can not navigate through the earthly city      as long as they long for the sky.