The Tea-Pet Toad

by Brett Rutherford

The carved red toad,
mouth open just enough
to hold a single dime,
is a harbinger of wealth,
slow-earned, a tenth
of a dollar doled
out a thousand
thousand times,

the kind of fortune
earned only
by making, by hand,
ten thousand dumplings.

The poor batrachian,
I did not notice
until yesterday,
has only two legs,
a bit of tail
for a tripod
solidity. What of
his other legs?

For lack of dimes
did he sell them off
to a street vendor
whose frog-leg dainties
please the crowd?

That string of coins
slung over his shoulder
implies he should not be
that desperate.

His gem eyes glitter
a greedy ruby and say,
“No need for legs.
I need not leap at all.
Coins come to me,
and pale tea pours
from the heavens
to pool around me.”

Serene as Buddha,
wrinkled as sage,
squat on his I Ching
pedestal, King Toad
rules the tea table.

Night Torment

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Asclepiades, The Greek Anthology, v, 189

A fool’s watch
on one of the year’s
longest nights, endless,
in winter weather, too!

I’m drenched with rain.
There’s no reward
for pacing back and forth
before a door
that never opens — hers.

Morning comes soon.
The mocking Pleaides,
warm in the arms
of one another,
are halfway up
from the horizon,
humming on through
the holes in the clouds. 

I know she is in there,
the sly deceiver.
Someone already came
and lies entwined
with her soft limbs.

What would I do,
anyway, if I saw
him leaving? Accost,
or slink away, or,
worst of all, knock
at her door and beg
my turn?

I know I am mad.
This is not love;
no honor here
for Aphrodite, not
the kind of affection
the gods bless. Lust,
simple and searing,
a hot arrow,
drives me on,
amid the winter chill,
tormenting fire.

An Unholy Trio

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Asclepiades, The Greek Anthology, v, 161

Euphro, Thais
and Boidion, three hags
who once were courtesans
at Diomede’s tavern,
who formerly took on,
like a twenty-oared transport,
the desperate arriving captains,
have cast ashore now
three ruined men, stripped
to their sandals and worse off
than shipwrecked sailors.

Poor Agis,
poor Cleophon,
poor Antagoras:
the rocks of divorce
await them, and all
because those creatures
posed as respectable
women and lured them
to home and hearth.

Back at their old trade,
corsairs of Aphrodite,
they shriek like Sirens.

Snuff Out the Lamp

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Asclepiades, The Greek Anthology, v, 150.

She made an oath one ought
not take in vain: Demeter’s
name she invoked in promising
to come to me tonight.
So much for Nico’s word.
The famous one is faithless,
it seems. It’s almost three
and I grow sleepy waiting.
Why did she promise so
earnestly? Do words
mean nothing at the end?

Go servant, and snuff out
the lamp left by the garden gate.
Now it would serve only thieves,
and there is no use wasting oil.

The Evil Song

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Dioscorides, The Greek Anthology, v, 138

One song I cannot bear, and now
Athenion sings it night and day.
Like some neglected, stupid dog
he brays away
the tune of “The Horse.”

Down with his horse, I say,
and damn all horses in general.
I cannot bear the sound of hooves.
In my dreams, an evil animal
this is. All Troy is aflame,
and in that fire I perish.

Ten years of siege, I cursed
those Greeks, but in one night
we horse-mad Trojans died.

The First Anthologist

THE FIRST ANTHOLOGIST

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, iv, 1

This my memorial for all of time,
to my beloved Diocles I give,
not helmet, shield, or fleece of gold,
but poems garland-gathered, sweet
and noble, angry at gods and men,
swooning with unrequited love, full
of heaven’s bliss and Hades’ cold
comforts, flowers bound tight
with leaf and branch. Burn not,
my long-labored book! Set sail
on fair winds with many copies,
ye who thrill to beautiful words.

This was Meleager’s work. His own
lines are packed in immodestly
with the best of the best. Too few
the flowers of Sappho, but roses
they are! Lilies, Anyte and Moero
left us. Oh, the sad narcissus,
with the clear blue eyes and song
of Melanippides; a strong branch
of Simonides keeps it from falling.
The iris of Nossis, short-lived
but beloved of the busy bees.

Eros stopped by, and with his heat
the wax melted for all my
piled-up writing tablets; long
he distracted me, but the work
is done at last. Have I not turned
every temple-stone and epitaph
so that no good line was missed?

Herbs, too, mix in when flowers
are too fragile. The sweet crocuses
of Rhianus and Erinna crouch here
pale as unmolested maids. Alceus
left his hyacinth, like the self-same
beauty’s locks, Apollo’s tears.
Laurel, be sure, is there beneath,
the dark-leafed branch of Samius.

To last, my garland must be made
of sterner stuff than blossoms only.
Here Leonidas’s ivy cluster clings,
here the pine’s spiky needles hold
green forever the words of Mnasaclas.
A fist-full of plane leaves for Pamphilus,
all tangled up with walnut Pancrates.
Add to the rustling poplar of Tymnes,
all shading the sweet wild thyme below
where Nicias still tunes his lyre, wild
spurge enwraps Euphemus whose
words are not forgotten. Even the frail
violet of Damagetus is gently placed,
protected by the myrtle, sweet
Callimachus, whose words
are biting honey. The list goes on.

You may consult the book. I wove
the names one after another
into an elegaic garland. Even
Anacreon’s sweet lyrics flew in,
and a nameless poet, too, whose
name would not fit any meter.
A dash of ocean water went in
to stop the garland from going
stale. There came Antipater, red,
and a golden bough of Plato, too,
and other fine poets too many
to mention. Here they will peep
among the lilies and surprise you.

If I place here, for my own Muse
to honor, a smattering of spring’s
early-blooming white violets,
my little poems, can I be blamed?

Things most of you have read
and memorized, are here,
conjoined with works
the world has never seen before.

Welcome to my anthology.

 

[Note: Meleager’s long introduction to his Greek Anthology weaves in the name of at least two dozen more poets, but he clearly is running out of steam with the metaphor. I have therefore cut the list short, leaving enough of it here to demonstrate what the poet was attempting.]

  

Line Up the Young Men of Kos

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xii, 94

Line up the young men of Kos
(the gods know they stand about
like apples in a market stall!),
and I will demonstrate
my varied tastes, and how I lack
that crude possessiveness
that mars so many comrades.

It is not as though
one wears them out,
for, laughing,
they come back for more

of our admiring glances.
Our kisses scar them not,
and we are not like
some fierce lizards swallowing
them head first. We carry books,
not ropes and nets, we dine
amid their company, their
fathers nod to us and smile.
Are we not all Greeks?

Is Diodorus there
not fair as a gold sunbeam?
See how the lines of eyes
all follow Heracleitus
until they can see no more?
Watch all heads turn
to the musical tenor
of sweet Dion there,
tuning his lyre for show.

Watch Uliades: he has
a way of making his chlamys
part just so: those thighs
will reach the Olympics!

Friend Philocles,
    take your fill.
Soft flesh invites
the tribute of touch,
so long as good manners
and a compliment
accompany.
Look to your heart’s content
where all are looking. No lad
ever fainted from being stared at.

Speak if you have the courage
to that one, there, alone
in the shade of the portico.
He merits attention and might
be a poet someday. He might
say yes to you
since you have books at home.

See how free from envy I am.
I have had my share, some
more than once, some
I could hardly get rid of.

What’s that? Which one?
The sun’s too bright for me
in that direction. No,
Philocles, look not on him.

That is Myiscus. Off limits.
Don’t even think of it.
Avert your eyes. Not him.
Cast greedy eyes that way
and you’ll be as sorry
as one who saw Medusa.

 

Oblivion

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xii, 49

Unhappy lovers drink
their wine unwatered,
as if strong spirits washed
clean one’s memory.

Does Bacchus trade
in amnesia, then?
Is love thus quenched
entirely gone, or does
it come back bitter,

a dark bell hovering
above the hung-over head,
a low gong sounding,
not top of the day’s joy,
but the Beloved’s name
endlessly rung
in one’s ears? Pain,

like a jovial demon,
puts on the face
of the very boy one wants
to put out of mind.
Rise up to find a mess:
spilled cups at the bed’s foot,
the shards of a shattered cask,
unsent, that torn love-note,
a single sandal not your own,
crumbs everywhere.

The risen sun
mocks the drinker,
and the first word out
of the vinegar mouth
is the same moan
you went to bed with,
blankets and pillows
the sad sculpture
you wrapped your arms
around, pronouncing
one name, his name,
the same name. Wine
doesn’t help a bit.

Chinatown, 1975

by Brett Rutherford

Gossip among
young Asian men,
with whom I dine,
    a guest, a stranger,
yet somehow as in
    as they are out.

Outsiders always,
     some seldom stray
     North of Canal Street,
employment limited
to under-the-radar
exploited jobs, unless

the overseas mother,
the rich uncle,
paid one’s way
to a good school,
escape into
the melting pot.

Slowly, I learn
the pecking order:

the ABCs
(American-born Chinese),

rich Asians
     on monthly checks
     from anxious parents,
well-off Taiwan
    or Singapore families;

“jump ships,” the
mainland arrivals
     from Mao’s horrors,
cardless, furtive,
evading questions.

Americans see none of this,
each bowing waiter,
     each unseen worker
in kitchen or sweatshop,
a Charlie Chan cipher.

Outcast among
a colony of outcasts,
I am at home here
at this round table whose
lazy susan rotates
a casserole of friendship.

From here, we head out
for the Chinese opera.

 

Elegy for Charixenus

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, vii, 468

Not eighty, not sixty, not forty,
not thirty even, fit age
for marrying, not even twenty!
Eighteen, Charixenus, dead!
Dressed in your chlamys
by your own mother, not
off for a prize, not off to a war,
     not off to a wedding day:
instead a woeful gift
     to hungry Hades.

I swear the earth shook,
     the stones groaned
as all his best friends
bore out his body
and all the house wailed.

So grieved were they
     who carried him,
their sobbing shook
the emblazoned bier.

Led by the baffled priests
    his parents chanted
a song of mourning,
a plea for swift passage
to a blessed place.

No one glanced up
as though to see the shame
of the indifferent sky
would drive all mad.

Alas for the mother’s breasts
that suckled in vain,
for the father whose line
might now be extinguished.

Did some old oath
    bring Furies here,
three evil maids
who revel in death?
Or, born of Night
    and Erebus
did Fates foredoom
this unhappy youth?
O Fates implacable,
barren yourselves you spit
to four winds the love
of mother for her first-
    and only-born.

How can the morrow
resemble the yesterday?
Friends, parents,
(and one, an unknown
lover, who pines for him),
their futures canceled.

Who will not hear
this tale and pity
the left-behind?
Grief pulls all down
to a common grave.

 

Past Her Prime

by Brett Rutherford

    Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, v, 204

Long in the tooth for love you are.
Those men have worn you out,
Timo, your timbers split
by the oar-beat of passion.
Hunched now you walk,
like a slack-wind yard-arm.

Parts of you flap
     alarmingly,
those famous breasts
now sagging low.
Wave-tossed, your belly
warps and wrinkles.

This ship has borne
too many passengers —
for shame, old courtesan,
give it up now. Instead
of perfume, bilge-water’s scent
precedes you. Retire now.
Invest your hard-earned coins
in something decent. Be gone
before your creaking bones collapse
and salvagers make off
with what is left of you.

I hear you plan to take
just one more lover on.
Unhappy he, unless he wants
to make love to his own
demise, riding you out
across Acheron, a skeleton
astride a coffin-galley.

Message to Heliodora

 by Brett Rutherford

    Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, v, 182

Dorcas, take this! A note
to Heliodora, who else?
Be not content to hand
it to her dull servant,
illiterate, who might just use
my love-note to wrap
chopped vegetables.

Into her own hands
you must place this,
and wait to be sure
she unseals and opens it.
And bring it back to me,
answer or not. Paper
is not cheap, you know.

Wait — don’t hurry along
so fast. So just in case,
recite it back to her
just as I did for you,
and as she wakens late
and may not be alert,
repeat it twice; three times
is not too much
and might exert
a spell’s effect. So, go now!

That way! I’m off on other
errands. Oh, wait, come back!
Here in my pocket, Dorcas,
here is a poem. Add this
and say — where are you running to?
It’s hard for me to keep up
as my legs are so much shorter
than your sprinting bean-poles.
I’ve not yet finished. There’s more.
Don’t walk so fast, my friend.

Oh, what a fool I am. Perhaps
the note reveals too much. Stay,
hand it back a moment. Why must
you walk so fast, anyway? Ah,
take it back, Dorcas, say everything
I told you — mind not my doubts.

So hurry and tell her everything.
What’s this? Why send you
on this errand when here we stand
before her door. Short-cut, you say?
How could we be there already?
So do me one last favor
and knock. I just can’t do it.

My arms feel paralyzed. My heart
has stopped. My message sinks
like a stone cast down a well.
My poem is a lead sinker.
Someone is at the door,
     unlatching!
Ye gods, where is my voice?
Should I just slide the paper
     under, and run?

 

 

This Way and That

by Brett Rutherford

   Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xii, 165

The words for “black” and “white”
are on my tongue each time
I say my name, black “melas”
in pair with “argos” white.
Is it then any wonder
that I pursue Cleobulus,
pale as a white blossom,
and also dark-haired
Sopolis, sun-tanned
the hue of fresh honey?

Fools say that opposites
attract, but what of me,
locked in a duality?
Nothing and everything
are my opposing forces,
female and male,
tawny or white as chalk,
and everywhere I turn,
Beauty stuns me.

Figures sur un Vase du Règne de Kangxi

LES ANCIENS BUVANT

by Brett Rutherford

Si le monde se terminait,
ils ne le sauraient pas.

Haut sur le versant
d’une montagne sacrée,
six érudits mortels
se réunissent
dans le jardin d’un manoir.

Maître Liu a tout arrangé
pour atténuer la chaleur
du mois d’août.

Un paravent dissimule
l’éblouissement du soleil
et ombrage la table,
là où quatre amis
dégustent du vin froid,
que l’hôte verse
d’un drapeau antique.

     Ma main fait tourner le vase
          décoré de figures bleues.

Gao, le haut fonctionnaire exilé,
arrive avec un livre interdit
qu’il tient près de son cœur.

Son neveu,
jeune et beau,
est trop habillé.
Il préfère faire une sieste
dans un vallon ombragé,
sans chapeau,
le col ouvert.

Un petit garçon,
un autre participant,
semble submergé
par la chaleur et l’ennui.

Celui-ci préfère jouer
avec son arc
et ses flèches,
ou regarder courir
les chevaux sauvages,

mais ici, le rythme lent
des vieillards rappelant
leurs poèmes,
et feuilletant les pages
pour trouver un dicton
confucéen —
elle doit suffire.
L’honneur c’est
d’être avec les sages.

     Ma main fait tourner le vase
          décoré de figures bleues.

Un serviteur se penche
pour ajouter des charbons
à un brasero enflammé.
L’eau est ici
pour les théières brunes
d’argile yi xing.

Les murets
zigzaguent le bord
du domaine de Liu.
Des arbres surplombent
l’écran peint.
Leurs branches
sont identiques
à ce que l’artiste
y a peint.

Quelle audace
de placer une forêt peinte
devant une vraie!

     Ma main fait tourner le vase
          décoré de figures bleues.

Dans le brouillard
de la montagne,
les sommets lointains,
et même le bord
d’un précipice voisin,
se perdent
dans la blancheur,
pâle comme de la porcelaine.

Tout est au premier plan,
et une main tendue
pourrait toucher la glaçure froide,
traçant la courbe
des limites de l’existence.

Figés une fois
et figés pour toujours,
les vieillards débattent
des mérites
des styles poétiques.

Ils délibèrent
sur la question de savoir
si les objets sont permanents
ou s’ils s’effacent
vers le néant.

Vin frais,
thé chaud,
la montée et la chute des tons
d’une chanson mémorable;

étouffé,
le faible rugissement
des eaux qui tombent

calligraphie
appelée de rien
pour tomber
sur une page blanche.

     Ma main fait tourner le vase
          décoré de figures bleues.

La journée est trop chaude
pour toute autre diversion.
Le monde se terminerait
si les yeux cherchaient
profondément
dans la brume plus dense.

Il y a un éblouissement jaune,
moucheté de moucherons.
Deux papillons y planent.
Ils sont en apesanteur,
immobiles
et terrifiés.

Quelle est cette tache
sur la blancheur pure:
     le soleil brûlant
          qui a envie de se montrer?
     une ville lointaine
          en feu, envahie?
     le cri
          qui explose
          d’un atome fendu?

Gao, apportez-moi le livre!
Soyez rapide,
mon amie.
Trouvez la bonne page,
     les mots à lire,
     les noms
          des dieux —
si les dieux existent —
que nous devons invoquer.

Ici,
dans la clarté du thé,
mille ans de sagesse
adhèrent.

Si longues sont les après-midis,
si courtes sont les nuits
d’août,
rongées par les insectes.

Ici,
ils sont tous en sécurité:
érudits, neveu,
garçon et serviteur.

     Ma main fait tourner le vase
          décoré de figures bleues.

Les Anciens buvant.
Ils n’ont pas à craindre
la fin du monde.

 

[Un vase peint à la main en bleu et blanc représente des érudits dans un Jardin. Derrière quatre érudits assis, un paravent peint les protège du soleil et du vent. Les arbres peints à l’écran sont les mêmes que ceux qui les entourent. Tout est au premier plan – aucun paysage lointain n’est visible, comme si la scène était entourée de brouillard. Sous la glaçure du vase, un grand espace ouvert a une légère fonte jaune, et le peintre de vase a dessiné de petites taches de poussière autour du bord de la lueur mystérieuse, et a placé deux papillons qui y planent. Ce qui ressemble à un défaut de couleur de l’argile semble intentionnel, et on nous demande d’expliquer sa cause, et pourquoi les savants semblent suspendus au premier plan.]

Figures On A Kangxi Vase

by Brett Rutherford 

The world might end
and they would not know it.
High on the slope
of a sacred mountain,
six mortal scholars gather
in a mansion garden.

Master Liu
has arranged everything
to mitigate
the heat of August.
A folding screen
conceals sun’s glare
and shades the table
where four enjoy
cold wine
from an antique flagon.

Hand turns around
blue-figured vase.
Gao, the exiled
high official, arrives
with a banned book
close to his heart.

His nephew, young
and handsome, feels
overdressed, and would
prefer a shady glen
to nap in, hatless
with collar undone.

A small boy, restless,
another bored
participant,
would rather be at
his bow and arrow,
or watching the play
of wild horses, but here
the slow pace of old men
calling to mind a poem,
leafing the pages to find
a Confucian dictum,
must suffice.
Honor it is
to be with the wise.

Hand turns around
blue-figured vase.
Crouching, a servant
adds coals to fire
beneath the brazier
meant to refresh
brown yi xing teapots.

Low walls zig-zag
the edge of Liu’s estate.
Trees overhang
the painted screen,
branches identical
to what the artist
painted there.
How daring to place
a painted forest
before a real one!

Hand turns around
blue-figured vase.
In mountain fog
the distant peaks,
even the edge
of a nearby precipice
are lost in white
as pale as porcelain.

All is foreground
and an extended hand
might touch cold glaze,
tracing the curve
of the limits of existence.

Frozen this once
and forever, the old men
debate the merits
of poetic styles,
deliberate
on whether things
are permanent
or fade to nothing.

Cool wine, warm tea,
the rise and fall
of a remembered song;
muffled, the dim roar
of falling waters;
calligraphy called up
from nothing to drop
upon a blank page.

Hand turns around
blue-figured vase.
A day too hot
for any other purpose.
The world might end
if eyes sought deep
into the denser mist,
a yellow glare,
gnat-flecked, in which
two butterflies hover,
weightless, immobile,
and terrified.

What is this blotch
upon pure whiteness?
The burning sun
craving to show itself?
A distant city
ablaze, invaded?
The exploding scream
of a split atom?

Gao, the book!
Be quick, my friend!
Find the right page,
the words to read,
the names of gods,
if gods there are,
we need invoke.

Here in the clarity
made plain by tea,
a thousand years
of wisdom adheres.
So long, the afternoons,
so short the nights
of bug-bite August.

Here they are safe,
scholars, nephew,
boy, and servant.
Hand turns around
blue-figured vase.
They need not fear
the world might end.

[A hand-painted blue-and-white vase depicts scholars in a garden. Behind four seated scholars, a painted, folding screen protects them from sun and wind. The trees painted on the screen are the same as those around them. All is foreground – no distant landscape is visible, as though the scene were surrounded by fog. Under the vase’s glaze, a large open area has a slight yellow cast, and the vase painter has drawn little dust-flecks around the edge of the mysterious glow, and placed two butterflies hovering there. What looks like a defect in the color of the clay seems purposeful, and we are asked to explain its cause, and why the scholars seem suspended in the foreground.]

 

 

A Tripod at Delphi

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Antipater of Sidon, The Greek Anthology, vi, 46.

I am not just any tripod,
one among many at Delphi.
Consigned to Apollo at Troy --
there my flame burned
before the funeral pyre
of one, torch-lit by the hand
of the other. For whom?

By whom? For Patroclus dead,
by Achilles' hand. That's who!
Brought here this tripod was
by the hands of yet another,
the most perfect of warriors.

Touch me, and touch the hand
of him who won the races
at Hellespont, the one who saw
the gods full-faced and lived
— Diomedes!

The Azaleas of Ningpo

by Brett Rutherford

Legendary and lethal,
the azaleas of Ningpo
cover the hillside, a blaze
of color intoxication.

Goats roaming there,
chewing the blossoms
and leaves, fall down
into a stupor.

A black vase
topped with a burst
of red azaleas,
pink hearts
of rhododendrons:
a death-warning.

A medicine as like
to kill as cure,
used sparingly;

a tiger face
not seen amid
the shrubbery;

fox-fairy perfume,
the fatal allure
of a woman met
by the road-side;

the pain, in exile,
of thinking of home.

Beware the azalea!

** This poem cites several Chinese names for the azalea: "thinking of home," "goat-stupeying flower," and "tiger flower."

The Mirror of Lais

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Julianus, Prefect of Egypt, The Greek Anthology, vi, 18, 20.

Lais,
in this mirror looking,
saw only Aphrodite.
Dim light, bright light,
year in, year out,
sorrows and lines
avoided her. The face
reflected there
seemed immutable.

She captivated Greece;
no mean feat
to make men bow
who had broken Persia
and crushed its shields
beneath their horses.

Now, suddenly,
she sees a hag,
dry lips, eye bags,
and a furrowed field
of ugly wrinkles.
A wig, face-paint,

lip gloss, all fail.
Men see, and look away.

The mirror no more
a pretty liar, becomes
a detested object.
Wrapped in a scarf
she sends it off
as an offering,
inscribed:

"Cytherea, goddess,
Aphrodite, friend
of my undying youth,
receive this mirror,
a false round window
now. Refuse it not,
well-made and gilt.

Look now and then
upon your beauty, you
who have no dread
of Time, the destroyer."

The Mourner

by Brett Rutherford

     From Dioscorides, The Greek Anthology, v, 53

Dying, Adonis,
you did not see
the way the fair
Aristonoe
wept for thee.

If someone wailed
beside my bier,
and tore her breasts
just so, I too
would voyage down

to Hades dark
to be thus mourned.
And at my tomb,
forever sad,
ah, would it were she!

To Antiochus

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xii, 133

Few understand Zeus
who for a millennium
keeps Ganymede
     a happy captive,
his youth preserved.

Is it the way two hands
tip water to cup
from a silver amphora,
or the sweet savor
of never-aging lips?

Now I have kissed
Antiochus, fairest
of all the young men
     hereabouts,
and so, I understand.

Ah, after clear water
from an ice-cold spring,
the soul’s sweet honey.

Unlucky Number

by Brett Rutherford

Who would have thought
that the unluckiest digit
was the tiny number Two?

Pythagoras said One
was unity or god,
a thing impossible to break
into constituent parts,

whereas the dreaded
number Two spelled out
diversity and struggle,
disorder and strife,
the root of all evil.

The Romans,
respecting always
the wisest Greeks,
were in accord.

Hold up two fingers
or stop your count
of anything at Two,
was like an evil eye,
or spitting at heaven.

Romans began the year
with One, the month of Mars,
then shuddered, cold,
through all of Two,
the month of Pluto,
when every chill wind
seemed to issue from Hades.

On Day Two of Month Two,
the Manes, unquiet shades
of ancestors neither blessed
nor damned, the walkers
at the edge of Hades, blow

up on night winds to haunt
the Roman graveyards,
unearthing bone and urn,
knocking about the little
household gods on the hearth,
engendering migraines
and mis-shapen births.

Walk on that day,
two fingers up on left,
two fingers up on right,
avoiding monuments,
not saying the names
of the departed. Eat
sparingly and take no salt,

pass water in all four
directions, and fail not
to complete each sentence
once begun, lest you lose
your tongue altogether.

At sunset, chant, Dis Manibus,
Dis Manibus, and pray
that no unquiet ghost answers.

Until the next day's dawning,
sleep not as two
entwined with wife or lover:

On the night of the Manes
each one must sleep alone
just as the dead ashes sleep
in their gloomy vaults below.

Go to Elysium

by Brett Rutherford

Good folks,
god-loving
(or so they tell themselves)
get a free pass
beyond the Styx,
and to Elysium go,

the Blessed Isles,
or one big isle
depending upon
which poet you believe.

There Rhadamanthus,
gives those surviving souls
who made no trouble
for others, or died rich
with suitable gifts
for the temple, haven.

What Rhadamanthus
provides, is more
of everything mortals
most wanted. Endless
sports, and concerts live
where they sway to and fro
to the beat of drums,
the thwack of guitars

electrified. Horses,
dogs, cigars, and whiskey
abound, forests of deer
and guns to shoot them with,
strip joints, pole-dancing
virgins, a big casino
for the high rollers.

Mob boss and pimp,
gun-dealing casino owner,
glad-handing, wink
and a nod to whatever
comes, Rhadamanthus
knows where his bread
is buttered, Elysium
the number one destination
for departed souls.

Once they get over
the nonexistence
of their deities,
all settle in. The games,
a season ticket,
an all-star cast
at the stadium.
Who can complain?

But as for me,
I book my fare
on the slow boat
to Hades. My cat,
a creature of great
discernment, is there,
and shall adorn my lap.
I shall read out
one thousand poems,
calming the howl
of hell's eternal winds.

Things I Never Dreamt I'd Eat

by Brett Rutherford

Duck feet, sea slugs,
lotus root dry
     from winter mud,
eggs lost and found
inside a clay pot
     a "hundred years,"

baby eels, slimy
     (aphrodisiac?),
tree-bark fungus
afloat in soup,
shark fin, dried
     octopus snack,

Old Pock-Marked
     Mrs. Chen's
tofu (the scholar's
rocket fuel),

mysterious red
sausages, pork
belly, bok choy,
a stinky fruit
(durian) milkshake,
noodles transparent,
tentacular,

the act of faith
that no one you know
has, after a thousand cuts,
wound up inside
today’s pork bun —

all these I know,
but I draw the line at
stew of a black dog,
and jellyfish.

Two Scholars Atop A Cliff

by Brett Rutherford

Fu Bao Shi paints them:
two scholar friends
who seldom agree
on weighty matters,
friends now
and forever regardless.

One faces the painter.
Perhaps he is glad
to be seen there
facing another cliff
we can only imagine.

The other looks off
into the spiky peaks
whose forested slopes
play hide and seek
in perpetual fog.

Posed at right angles,
neither scholar sees
the same reality;
neither can know
how Fu sees them
seeing. Fu cannot see
what either scholar
perceives.

 
Black ink,
brown washes.
One nature,
many mountains.
Each man alone
in a universe
of seeing.

Dreams of Down Below

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xvi, 213

I am looking forward
to the Underworld,
     really, I am.
Despite dim light,
cold drafts, and food
at best repulsive
(mushroom fare!),
love’s bitter arrows
go not there.

A good night’s sleep
is almost assured
without those torments
of futile yearning
after this one, that one.

Comparing notes,
     the lovers, great and small,
     will offer their hands
     in condolence. Poor
poet, what do I have
to boast of?

But what of those
     who have gone before,
     seething with jealousy,
     remembering bad nights
     and broken trysts?
Lovers, a cynic told me,
are housed on separate isles
from the dead objects
of their past pursuit.
A waving hand across
    ice floes in Acheron
are all one can hope for.

But is that so awful?
If death is just
    old age extended,
one could,
     despite the shivers,
read all the poets,
dispute, if able,
with the philosophers
who stumble about
saying, “Does this exist?”
“Do I, a shade, exist?”

Musing on this, I dreamt
of a scholar’s afterlife,
surcease of sex and sorrow.
But then came Demeter
in her proud chariot.
“I come for my daughter,”
she told me. “Each year
on the appointed day
I take her home to Mt, Ida,
and oh, the flowers!”

I stood dumbstruck.
My idle dreams of peace
were shattered, as
the pale figure passed me
and red-eyed Hades
howled “Persephone!”
with all the agony
of a bereft bridegroom.

If that dark god
to whom all come
quakes pillars of Hell
for the one he cannot
possess, then truly,
as above, so below.
The lord of the dead,
and all the dead,
are Love’s prisoners!

 

Bringing Bad News to Niobe

In classic Greek tragedy, violent acts always occur offstage, and actors or the chorus must relate to those on stage, and to the audience, what has happened out of sight. Meleager’s longest poem seems to be a demonstration of such a speech, in an imaginary drama about the fate of Queen Niobe and her family, all of whom are killed by Apollo and Artemis after she insults Leto (Latin, Latona), their mother. Boasting of her 14 children, Niobe calls the mother of Apollo and Artemis “nearly childless.” Ovid tells the gruesome story of all the sons and daughters felled by arrow shot from the sky in his Metamorphoses. Meleager would be engaged, it seems, in coming up with the worst news ever brought by a single messenger. He assumes that the Queen is in her palace, and that one poor soul has to narrate everything – and then, even in the midst of his speech, more horrors pile on. This tour de force, packed into the fewest possible lines, prompted me to expand the text, and to cast my version in blank verse so that it sounds like a speech from an English drama.

BRINGING BAD NEWS TO NIOBE

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xvi, 134

Daughter of Tantalus, O Queen of Thebes,
never was a messenger so charged with woe.
From your stern gaze, Niobe, I avert
my head; on bowed knees, trembling, I falter.
Can I say all that must be said to you
without a blinding dart or lightning bolt
reducing me to ash? O Queen, rend now
your robes to rags, hurl down the diadem
and howl as never a mother before!

Your sons are dead! What? All of them, yes all!
That glance! Would I were mad as you think me.
Come to the balcony and see it all,
what Thebes in horror witnessed in bright sun:
the arrows plunging down, one angry god
and his equally angry sister, hot
to avenge their mother’s honor, drew bows
from yon low-hanging cloud. What gods, you ask?
I cannot say it above a whisper —
Apollo and Artemis, none other.

Come quickly, then. Your daughters already
flood the field with cries. The horrified crowd
parts way for them. O lady, come not here —
hold back — oh, smiting gods — the girls as well!
They knelt in lakes of blood, and now they fall.

O Queen, where have you gone? Is it the King
you have gone to grieve with? I saved that bit
for later. Upon the sword he fell, seven sons
bereft. Now, what is that below? The Queen
amid the carnage, arms up imploring
the fatal heavens. One daughter leans hard
upon her bosom, another at her feet
expires. Some, praying to Leto, clasp hands
in fervent begging. No use! The feathered
shafts continue falling, seven sons dead
and seven daughters. O find me a sword
that I may fall upon it. O History,
will thy Muse permit the telling of this?
Must I live on to be the one who writes
on bloody parchment this dark tale of woe?

All witness on the red ground below, yet
who can compass both the effect and cause?
What plagues and sorrows will come after this?
And as for Niobe, still as a stone,
what will this hard retribution teach her?
Speak, Queen! Your mouth is open, but no cry
comes forth. Gods! What do my eyes behold now?

She is a stone. Crown gone, disheveled her
golden hair, hands out before her visage,
fingers spread fanlike as if to block out
the gaping wounds, the heart-blood spurting still
from where the unerring arrows chest-plates
pierced, skulls riven in two, dead eyes agape,
as fourteen new souls sleet down to Hades.

Frozen she is, tongue, lips and teeth, wild eyes,
torrent of torn robes and unloos’d sandals,
all to marble transformed, except one tear,
that, seeping up from a mineral spring,
flows rivulets upon the mother’s face,
and in renewing itself, becomes a font.

Weep, Niobe! I shall repeat your tale
to any Muse who wishes to listen.
I shake. I wield no stylus and no lyre.
If Gods do this to us, what hope is there
that brutish men will rise above the beasts?

 

 

 

Midsummer Respite

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xii, 128

The night is too short.
Pipes pastoral,
     be silent!
Let Daphnis stay
in mountain
     hideaway,
asleep on a hill-top.
Summon him not
at the call of Pan,
that goat-molester.

Lyre of Apollo,
     be silent!
Long dead and gone
is Hyacinthus,
fallen his laurel
     crown, fled
the zealous wind
who felled him.

Let Daphnis
and his kin delight
the ever-watchful
nymphs at hand.
Keep Hyacinthus
a fond memory
in Phoebus's eye.

Give this summer night
over to human lovers.
Stir not young men
to supernatural yearnings.

My Dionysus -- no,
     not the god! --
let this poor Dion wield
love's commanding staff.
The night is too short.
Grant us the space
to woo and win
with poems, wine
and mortal vows.
Grant us one
unassisted kiss
in midsummer silence.

Either-Or

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xii, 86.

Aphrodite it is,
   soft, curved
     and ever-smiling,
     who lays forth
liquid flame,
compelling men
     to women’s charms.

Eros, it is, tender,
     tall, eluding
one day and giving
     the next,
the North Star
    of male-to-male
     affection.

What is my Pole,
    my inclination?
How shall the world
turn me, and to whom?
Boy Eros in Hermes guise,
or Cypris, bride and mother?

Whom will I see,
     curled up
beneath my morning
     blanket; whose
hair will drive me mad
     as my fingers run
through the abundant curls
of the exhausted sleeper?

     She, or He?

In dreams I’ve heard
the Morning Star sigh
as Aphrodite admits
she cannot outpace
her mischievous son.
Regarding me,
    she shakes her head
       confessing,
“Eros, the arrogant brat
     has won again!”

 

In A Name

 by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xii, 81

What parent would name
his child in such a manner? —
Look, here comes Dionysus!
To be the butt of jokes,
provocative glances, drunken
jibes, and dangerous
assumptions is bad enough —
no blame to the young man
if he also possesses beauty,
eyelashes as fatal
    as the net to the fish.

Love-sick with self-deceit,
imagining souls bound
by a night of passion,
fellow victims, assist me!
You know the bitter-honey
     taste of rejection.
Pluck out my heart —
plunge it in cold water,
or, better yet, into
the colder jolt of a snow-bank

save me, for I have dared
    to look on Dionysus.
A river plunge, a waterfall,
    an iceberg ride
in Ultima Thule, anything!

You, laughing, passive witness
of youth and beauty,
help me to stop
     Love’s venom.

O Dionysus, to sleep
    with you is bliss.
But to wake with you?
I fear my heart
cannot contain it.

Hubris

by Brett Rutherford

Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xii, 101

Myiscus, one morning after,
dismisses my library
with a bored glance,
tugs at my sleeve
as I write a poem.

“Do you love me better
than those old epigrams
you collect and copy?”
he asks me, inserting
his question mid-stanza.

I put the stylus down.
“I lived for poetry
     until you struck me down.
Now I am not so sure.”

He laughs. In him,
some demon triumphs,
as if to boast,
     “See what I’ve done.
The proud scholar
     is now debased. My foot
is on his neck.
I’ve furrowed his wise brow
with lines of worry and jealousy.”

“Don’t be so smug,”
I caution him.
Nobody makes anybody
do anything
    unless some force compels.
Eros makes even Zeus
     do things his wife
would never countenance.”

Smugly, the boy leaves me
to go off to discus practice,
while I return to poetry.
This line,
     was it mine?
or did Callimachus,
as drunk with this love
as I am, say it already?

 

A Contest of Eyes

by Brett Rutherford

     After Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xi, 92

i

Why, despite his
apparent indifference,
does my head turn
to follow Hicetas
till he is out of sight?

The problem is
that I have seen his eyes.

My goose is cooked.
He’s nobody, really.
How can the lesser
bring down the greater?
Glue-traps on trees
capture the wild dove,
admittedly,
     but by and large,
sheep do not eat wolves,
crows do not catch scorpions,
ash does not smother fire.

Love cooks and stirs
everything. The soul
in love is upside-down.

I roast in beauty;
my soul runs down
into the fire.

ii

My eyes betray
my soul’s intent,
forsaking peace.
Like hounds, they burst
from out their sockets,
chasing the beloved.
And he, bird-lime
on his fair limbs,
catches the glance
and will not let it go.

Winged eyes discover
the wolves in the fold,
who, having been seen,
go skulking off. The crow,
whose eyes blink
sideways, taunts
the scorpion’s steady gaze
and turns away.

The pitying sky’s
tears fall and smother
the flame beneath
     the crumbling ash.

 

iii

No love at first sight
for the sightless.

What if we made
a merry bonfire
of these steaming orbs?
Trusting no more
the trickery of vision,
what if we crawled about
like errant crabs
in the receding tide,
selecting at random touch
whom we should love?

Could it be worse
than this cruel lottery
of colliding visions,
eyeballs circling
in long ellipses
like lost comets?

 

iv
Taking no lesson
from Oedipus,
far-knowing Tiresias,
or from the woe
of a Spartan bridegroom
begetting warriors
in total darkness,
I must accept my fate.

I see, I am seen.

My complaints are petty.
Hicetas, hold my gaze,
for in Hades, I am told
all eyes are averted.