Icarus Falling

Daedalus and Icarus is a tale of hubris, recklessness and youthful folly. It’s about a father’s love and, later, his grief. Icarus, who flies too close the sun, singes his wings and plunges back down to earth.

However, some see it as a story of highs and lows; that is, as a metaphor for manic depression. Prompted by Wikipedia, Australian beat poet Scott Wings follows suit in this punchy little solo.

His Icarus is stranded in a tower, frustrated and lovelorn; his Daedalus, a bitter and twisted old man, trapped in a maze of his own making. When he flies away, he leaves Icarus behind. “Sometimes,” says Wings, “parents are shit and sometimes they leave you for no reason.”

On balance, all this has more to say about the myth, than it does about mental health. Wings’ portrait of depression can feel generic, albeit, at times, knowingly so. “Everything’s cliché,” he sighs, heavily, when Icarus gets stuck in a rut: heartache is cliché. Poems are cliché. Clichés are cliché. It’s a neat expression of the listlessness that can drag a person down.

However, too often Wings loses his nerve and beats a retreat into irony. Retro Zelda references and ninja-based flights of fancy puncture the story for a cheap aside. It’s in keeping with his high-octane performance, admittedly, but Wings is more watchable than his writing. Where he crackles with charisma, his words fall somewhat flat.