Homer’s Mistakes in “Odyssey”

From an autobiography of a Polish writer,
An anecdote about a friend of his
Who, after the partition of Poland in 1939
Between the Nazi Germany and Soviet Union,
Found himself in a Soviet prison in Lvov.

The cell was full of Ukrainians,
Some nationalists, some criminals,
Who first robed the lone Pole of his
Middle-class, lice-free clothes
And then demanded that he tell them stories
To keep them from fighting each other.

And so, over several days, the story was told:
Of “When the king of an island called Ithaca
Was abroad besieging a big city on the coast
Of Asia Minor called Troy…” and when he finished,
He was told to repeat the story all over again
But this time slowly and without mistakes.

Clearly, King Odys was Ukrainian
And Scylla and Charybdis did not live near Italy
But in the waterfalls and rapids of the river Dnieper
And surely there must have been some
Traitorous Stalinist Russians
Among those who wanted to fuck King Odys’s wife.