Work Text:
Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of IKEA.
Many displays of furniture he saw and learned their construction,
many pains he suffered, heartsick in the entrapping aisles,
building to save his soul and bring his comrades home.
Launch out on his story, Muse, daughter of Kamprad,
start from where you will--sing for our time too.
In the hall of the king of Ithaca, where the throne long stood vacant,
a multitude of men lay about. They drank good wine and ate good meat,
all at the hospitality of the wise and reserved Penelope.
She attended them, queen that she was,
for they were her suitors.
Yes, suitors, in the halls of the king of Ithaca,
for the king was thought to be dead after his disappearance in IKEA.
This was the auspicious night when she would make a choice,
give her lovely hand in marriage to a suitor.
The time had come. The goddess Athena with her blazing eyes
inspired Penelope, Icarius’ daughter, wary, poised,
to set a hammer and a row of nails out
before her suitors waiting in her husband’s hall--
to test their skill and bring their defeat on.
She described to them their task:
“Only my dead husband, Odysseus, could ever lift this hammer and
drive these nails. Only that man who can do the same
will I give my hand in marriage.”
That great tool--
King Odysseus never took it abroad with him
when he went furniture-shopping in his long black trucks.
He kept it stored in his stately house,
and only took that hammer up to build at home.
Not one of the suitors, strong and handsome though they were,
could lift the handle of the hammer half an inch.
For a moment it was thought that all was lost.
At the urging of the King’s son, Telemachus,
a man dressed in a ragged IKEA hoodie rose to his feet.
He threw off the hood, and at this moment
the goddess Athena with her cunning hand
gave him back the visage of the king they knew so well.
“How do you live?” Antinous from Williams-Sonoma demanded,
half in fear and half in awe. “We thought you dead all these years!”
Odysseus, the great teller of tales, launched out on his story:
“I am Odysseus, son of Laertes, known to the world
for every kind of craft--my fame has reached the skies.
Sunny Ithaca is my home. She stands atop the hill,
Mount Neriton’s leafy ridge shimmering in the wind.
Mine is a rugged land but good for raising sons--
and I myself, I know no sweeter sight on earth
than my own gorgeous home.
No more. Come,
let me tell you of this journey fraught with hardship
Kamprad inflicted on me, homeward bound from the bedroom section.
The press of the crowd drove me out and on to kitchen section,
the stronghold of pushy salespeople. There I sacked the aisle,
driving off the associates, but as for the ladles and pans,
that rich haul we dragged away from the place--
we shared it round so no one, not on my account,
would go deprived of his fair share of spoils.
But those mutinous fools remained too long,
and the salespeople returned with security guards,
called for help from men with tasers,
and they broke our lines and beat us down at last.
From there we pushed our carts on.
Nine whole days
I was borne along by rough, deadly crowds
on the stroller-infested floor. Then on the tenth
our squadron reached the land of the Meatball-Eaters,
people who eat the meatballs with creamy sauces.
Any crewmen who ate the meatball, the savory food,
lost all desire to send a message back, much less return,
their only wish to linger there with the Meatball-Eaters,
grazing on epicurean delights, all memory of the journey home
dissolved forever. From there we pushed our carts on.
Soon enough we reached the land of the mighty Cyclops,
lawless brutes encamped within the armoires
deep in the bowels of the store.
I thought to give them gifts of treasure in return for wool hats,
but one of their number, the immense Polyphemus,
gave us only death in return. Four of my men
he devoured, inglorious death! But I outsmarted him in the end:
with a great sharpened bedpost, we put out his eye
and so escaped that land. ‘By Nobody’s hand,’ I taunted,
‘were you defeated, O Son of Poseidon!’
From there we pushed our carts on,
and soon enough came to the home of Aeolus,
a hidden place in the endless aisles of boxes and beams.
The king had sired twelve children in that hall,
and in their secret kingdom feasted and danced
while around them people shopped, none the wiser.
To us he gave a vehicle,
the West Wind;
at his command, it began to bear us home.
But my crew thought to take more plunder, and in their greed
lost that marvelous vehicle just as we came in sight of the doors.
The crowds buffeted us back and once again we were lost.
From there we pushed our carts on.
We passed the territory of the Laestrygonians, cannibals,
who devour those who linger too long over dinner tables.
And from there we came to the realm of Circe, bewitching queen of Aeaea,
who would have kept my crew forever in her halls as plush stuffed animals
among the falsely perfumed flowers she made by sorcery.
But my mighty sword was enough to convince her to let us go
and so we pushed our carts on.
We survived the Land of the Dead, where long-lost shades
of long-dead shoppers weep and mourn the lives they might have had,
and would have survived more. But I could not save my crew,
not from their own reckless designs,
the clumsy fools, they slept on the beds of Apöllö
and the Skylightgod wiped from sight the day of their escape.
Alone I pushed onward, battered and broken,
and came to the bedroom section,
where lovely Calypso offered me rest on a soft bed.
I stayed and tarried with her for seven long years.
At last she released me, by command of the gods,
and I have come at last to Ithaca, my own home.”
Before the suitors could half protest,
Odysseus took up his hammer and drove home the line of nails,
as only the true king of Ithaca could do.
At this display of might, the suitors scattered
as roaches scatter before the advance of a shoe.
Odysseus, with a gracious prayer to Athena,
took his wife in his arms and bore her up to the bed
he had built her with his own hands,
with nothing coming from that store of heartache IKEA.
And Athena handed down a pact of peace:
IKEA would finally put up signs leading to its exit.