Free Genoa by Paul Metcalf

television aerial, in the wind, straining the chimney brackets.
    In Lisbon,—rank with bodega, wine in the wood, salt fish, tar, tallow, musk, and cinnamon—the sailors talk
    of monsters in the western ocean, of gorgons and demons, succubi and succubae, maleficent spirits and unclean devils, unspeakable things that command the ocean currents—of cuttlefish and sea serpents, of lobsters the tips of whose claws are fathoms asunder, of sirens and bishop-fish, the Margyzr and Marmennil of the north, goblins who visit the ship at night, singe hair, tie knots in ropes, tear sails to shreds—of witches who raise tempests and gigantic waterspouts that suck ships into the sky—of dragon, crocodile, griffin, hippogrif, Cerberus, and Ammit
    or Melville:
                                     “Megalosaurus, iguanodon,
                                     Palaeotherium glypthaecon,
                                           A Barnum-show raree;
                                           The vomit of slimy and sludgey sea:
                                     Purposeless creatures, odd inchoate things
                                     Which splashed thro’ morasses on fleshly wings;
                                     The cubs of Chaos, with eyes askance,
                                     Preposterous griffins that squint at Chance . . .”
    And the medical book:
               “At one time the human sperm cells were regarded as parasites, and under this misapprehension the name spermatozoa, or ‘semen animals,’ was given to them.”
    Melville again:
               “You must have plenty of sea-room to tell the Truth in; especially when it seems to hare an aspect of newness, as America did in 1492, though it was then just as old, and perhaps older than Asia, only those sagacious philosophers, the common sailors, had never seen it before, swearing it was all water and moonshine there.”
    The sailors talked of islands:
    of Antilia, and the splendid mirages beyond Gomera; of the French and Portuguese Green Island, and the Irish O’Brasil;
    of the great pines, of a kind unknown, cast ashore on the Azores by west and north-west winds—and the lemons, green branches, and other fruits washing upon the Canaries;
    of Saint Brandon’s, to be seen now and again from the Canaries, but always eluding discovery,
    except by the Saint himself, who set out in search of islands possessing the delights of paradise, and finally landed,
    found a dead giant in a sepulchre, revived him, conversed with him, found him docile, converted him, and permitted him to die again. The sailors talked of
               “the desert islands inhabited by wild men with tails . . .”
    or of Atlantis, where the gods were born, and whose first king, Uranus, was given to prophecy . . .
    discovered, perhaps, by Phoenicians blown west, and reported by Silenus (whose words are beyond question, as he was drunk at the time) to be “a mass of dry land, which in greatness was infinite and immeasurable, and it nourishes and maintains by virtue of its green meadow and pastures many great and mighty beasts. The men who inhabit this clime are more than twice the height of human stature . . .”
    The shore was lofty and precipitous, with a vast, fertile plain lying inland, and great mountains to the north. The land abounded in all precious minerals, and cattle and elephants were plentiful.
                                             (modern excavations in southwest Spain have unearthed elephant tusks . . .
    There was a canal, and a proud, barbaric city, with copper-clad walls, and a great temple to Poseidon, clad with silver, and a gigantic statue in gold.
    And there was