The Shards of Gods

by Brett Rutherford

Theognis, high in honor
among the archaic Greeks
served Apollo, and thus
he pledged his patron:

“Lord, child of Leto, son
of the lightning-bearing
Zeus of Olympus, I kneel
at your feet and beg
the company of Muses.”

So, too, Theognis
loved every lad whose face
bore any semblance
     to Apollo,
abjectly, in the face of scorn.

“First breath, last breath,
and every breath between,
I consecrate to you,” [1]
he swore to the god,
an adoration worth
a thousand poems at least.

But as for me,
     I serve a fickle deity:
fleet Hermes who comes
and goes as he pleases,
the one who seldom arrives
by daylight,
but rather in dreams,
in ever-deceptive
masks and guises.

Apollo may bless the poets
who labor patiently
at measured epics. I wait,
instead for Hermes,
the avatar of sudden inspiration.

And, just as Theognis pined
     for noble youths
more bent on games and girls,

I spent my youth
     on fair-haired orphans,
     outcasts and dreamers,
my fellow exiles and reprobates.
Not one of them had a home
     to go to; most
had been written out of wills,
     turned out-of-doors
to their own devices.

Oft times I sleep
     with window open,
so that the god
     who makes house-calls
between his errands
may leave me the blossom,
root, or branch
for my next poem,

so too the strays,
scruffy and poorly shod,
may enter at random
when least expected,
in need of caresses.

And thus, through gods
and the shards of gods
on beautiful faces,
the night holds out
against the burning day.

 NOTE:

1. The Theognis quotes are paraphrased from his Elegaic Poems, I, 1-4.

 

 

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.

 

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.

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.

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!”

 

After the Shipwreck, Love

 by Brett Rutherford

     After Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xii, 84-85

The shipwreck’s vow to love,
on being rescued, the first he sees
if foiled by fickle Eros. A week
he languished, windless, idle,
and then for days storm-tossed
not only side-to-side but
upside down among the fishes;
ship dashed to splinters, all
of his fellows food to sharks;
he on his first voyage, alone
lived and came to shore.

A sight he was, barefoot,
and all but naked.
As it was dawn,
no one saw him.
Sheep he heard, but saw
    no shepherds.
Laughter of women came
where laundry lay on stones,
but when he approached
they had all fled somewhere,
as though some great bear
or a hungry Cyclops
     threatened them.

He chose among
the abandoned clothes
what modest raiment seemed
proper for a stranger’s entry
into the walled town.

The vow he made
to love whomever first
greeted him, came back
to his mind’s ear,
his own voice promising
against the howling gale.
Poseidon had spared him,
but what had Eros in store? 

“So be it,” he said.
“Be it crone or cripple,
beggar or brothel-maid,
I cast my lot to fate.”

And, lo! the first closed door
to a walled garden flew
open as if a wind willed it,
and there stood, bathing
from shoulders to feet
in fountain spray,
an eighteen-year ephebe,
chlamys and cap dropped
at water’s edge.

As quick as it had opened,
the door swung shut.
The lad laughed:
their eyes had locked
for just an instant,
enough for each,
if he willed,
to love the other
once and forever.

He went to an inn
across the way,
where ardent carousers
already at their wine
adopted his cause.

“As strangers come
from Zeus,” one said.
“here, take the last
coppers I’m carrying.
Another here will
    offer you lodging
and work enough
for strong hands.”

Cups raised,
    the Dionysian god
they praised.

One touched
the sleeve
of his tunic.
“That is my weave
you are wearing.
No matter — keep it.”

Now bread and oil,
lentils and meat
we put before him.
Once three wines full
he ventured to tell them
of that love oath which
the sea’s lord and Eros
bound him. “That house”
he pointed, “is where I saw
the most perfect being
in all the universe.
Pray, tell me the name
of the young man living there?”

Stone silence. Two faces
went red. Others choked down
whatever it was
     they wished to say.

“That house?”
     one asked him.
He nodded.
     All laughed.

“Welcome to Kos,
    and to ‘The Arrow’!”
the inn-host replied.
Arms reached
and went around
his shoulders.

“All day we sit and drink
and wait for that door
     to open.
We are a fellowship
     sworn to no jealousy.

Whom he chooses,
     we honor.
He walks as a godling
     among us.
Good luck to you, stranger!”

 

 

Burning Up

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xii, 74

Cleobulus, dear friend,
this island of Kos
has really done me in.
The surfeit of children,
     bounty’s blessing,
has led to an overflow
of lusty, idling,
     superfluous young men.

I came here for peace of mind,
but what am I to do?
They come up to you
with those impudent faces,
dark eyes both mocking, imploring,
don’t you dare and will you please,

their eyebrows and lashes
     weird hieroglyphs.

So close to death am I
from all these love-burns,
I’d might as well carry
an urn beneath my arm.
Each time one smites me
with his glances, there
I can put my cinders,
ash and bone-shards
as I walk along.

When all that’s left of me
is a bronze urn
with little human feet,
smoldering, do me
the favor of a prompt burial.

But first, I pray you,
Cleobulos my confidant
immune to this kind of love,
take my plain urn —
letting no lads claim
a particle of trophy —

ignoring the hoots and howls
of mockery, take this
plain urn, soak it
three days in wine
(the redder the better)
and on that heart-dyed
verdigris inscribe my name
and just these words:

DRINK ME:
LOVE’S GIFT
TO DEATH.

 

 

 

Super Powers

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xii, 63

The young men, smitten
at seeing themselves
mirrored in clear water,
are more than doubled
in beauty and power.

Their chests swell,
shoulders arch back,
biceps taut, fists
in a fighting posture.
Gods in themselves
they seem. Young

Heraclitus here
darts fire from his eyes.
So quick is he, that he
the thunderbolt of Zeus
could stop with a glance,
and, fire on fire, destroy it.

Diodorus, too,
attains heroic status.
Rising from marble bench
he says, “Not only
warmth my body grants
to inanimate stone,
but if I will it,
the stone will melt,
run off like a flow
at the forge of Hephaestus.

The two regard me,
notice me noticing
their lovely forms.
I burn. I melt.

Property of Zeus

by Brett Rutherford

     After Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xii, 68

A fool said: “Spare the pretty ones,
for they are property of Zeus.”
Does he, the son of Kronos, require
more than his thousand-year
     Ganymede, than whom
no mortal youth can be
     more handsome?

I want Charidemus.
I told him so. Some fool
advised him to seek only Zeus
as his lover, the prize so high —
good food, and life eternal.
But the price, boy:
     a boyfriend as old
     as the mountains of Atlas.

How vain the lad becomes.
He goes about now,
     chlamys flapping,
exposing his attributes
    to the blue sky above.
He wears an eagle pendant,
   the little flirt.

Elsewhere I’d better turn
my attentions, the busybody
advises me. With all
my other troubles piled up,
     do I need cloudbursts
     and thunderbolts, too?

At risk, I follow him about.
Courting his little ascension
he might go off some cliff
or get his eyes pecked out
by lesser avians. Dare I,
if an eagle lifted him
     on giant pinions,
grab hold, pull back,
aghast and weeping,
hot tears on my empty hand
my only reward? I fear
I am not so brave as that.

Zeus, take him then! Let’s
get the waiting over with.
Glut your eyes on beauty.
And having taken one, oh,
Charidemus has brothers,
cousins, all of one mold.

Or, if the sophist is right,
you’d might as well scoop up
the whole town square’s
ephebes, young loiterers
of a Saturday afternoon
with nothing better to do
than bask bright-eyed
in the blue-white day?
Take all, greedy god,
till none are left
but the lame and homely.

Consider, King of Heaven,
how I am denied ambrosia,
     and a poet, no less.
Harvest the earth
    of all its beauties,
and no more poems will come!

You want hymns,
     encomiums, prayers
        and rituals?  Fine.
In return, let each of us
cherish and keep his own
    Charidemus!

 

Spitting Image

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology,xii, 76, 78

If Eros, my full-grown
     Nemesis,
stood sans the bow,
     the quiver, the arrows,
one foot before the other,
     just so,

and if you traced
     arms, shoulders, neck,
     the full-mouthed, high-
     cheeked, god-nosed
visage, and all the rest —

omitting those wings,
    of course,

then made Zoilus,
the potter’s son, pose
until each line and curve
was captured, lay one
upon the other. The same!

Let Eros put on
     the garb of youth,
the chlamys so
     provocative of desire,
then don the cap,
     the petasus,
or, better yet,
the cap suspended
by neck-string
behind the neck
as boys are wont
on windy days
to wear them. 

Trace this, lay one
outline upon the other —
Eros — Zoilus — the same!

 

 

My Own Ganymede

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xii, 65.

Now I have Myiscus,
the bliss of Olympians
seems right at hand.

True, no magic apples
stop time and age for us.
The cup he bears me
has water only. Too good
to last this pleasure is,

What if great Zeus
     on high,
tiring of his never-aging
Ganymede, youth
of a thousand years,

would pluck from me
this prize I treasure
but do not deserve?
What if my poems
     provoke
a curiosity divine?

I fear to walk with him
under a clear blue sky.
Beware, Myiscus dear,
the swooping wings,
     the raptor claws!

 

Absence

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xii, 52

Adraganthus, gone to sea!
He could not wait, alas, for me:
fair-blowing winds take to the South
all ships so quick to seize the time
of prosperous sailing. Bereft
we are that such a one has fled
from banquet, poems, wine, and bed.

That such a one would ride the waves
delights the ocean spirits thrice,
and four times bless’d the breezes are
that drive the sails. In dolphin form,
should he sink, I would carry him —
oh, let the octopus take all
the rest of them, ugly sailors! —

Bear him I would to Rhodes intact
where I am told the shores are lined
with shipwreck rescuers, fair boys
who with their loving fingers draw
all the lost men from the briny waves.

Abductors of Rhodes, return him!
Lure him not with emerald eyes
and garlands of gold amaranth.
Send Adraganthus back to me!

 

  

Love On Top

 by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology

Really, Eros! You threw me down.
I was no match; I tumbled,
and there you are on top of me.

Worse than wrestling, this;
more like arena gladiators.

Why not just finish me off,
foot on my neck and all?
Even in the pale dawn light —
when I lay here waiting
for the one who did not come —
I recognized you. Heavy
you are — how you have grown
from child to manhood.

Eros grown up is
     even more dangerous.
Where love by proxy
    was your boyish business,

so now you come yourself
     to possess me.
What? No bow, no quiver,
     no stinging arrows?
Really? Just you … and me?

I hope this is some random
     visitation. Truly,
to be overcome as I have
     done to others
is amusing. Do what you will.

But not my heart, mind you:
     set that not alight.
You cannot burn it, Eros!
It is already ash. Get on
with your pulsations, make
me scream the names
    of everyone I longed for, 

but this is all in vain.
Leave the back way
     so no one sees,
or better yet, just spread
those pinions and wing
up and out the open window.

 And mind you take
your sandals, cap, and staff.
I’ll never tell — I promise!

 

 

The Fading Charms

 by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xii, 41

I once found Theron beautiful —
what was I thinking?

Apollodotus, too,
     of golden gleam —
dull, tarnished brass!

How soon youth’s torches
     burn out! 

Women take care
to make themselves fair,
and sustain the illusion.
At least with them
the suddenly-sprouted
beard, nose broken
in the heat of sport,
gashes from antlers
    and boar-tusks,
the random bruises,
blights and blemishes
of manhood: all these,
by their magic,
the ladies evade.

True, these damaged youths
still have some followers.
Men older than me,
    as coarse as goat-herds,
jostle to encounter them,
eager to mount
this hirsute and broken
merchandise.

 

Beardless No More

 by Brett Rutherford

     After Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xii, 33

Now Heracleitus, once so fair, has come
to what I called “the bearded stage.”
Not to be like a philosopher —
     oh, never that! —
but just to prove he can pass 

as one ready for bride-grooming.
It’s just as though he stuck
some mud-and-hide camouflage
so that his face and neck
repel meek kisses, or a touch.

So Polyxenius, his rival,
struts about like Hermes,
no more than a tantalizing
tuft beneath his chin,
a hint of moustache. He knows
all eyes are upon him.

Proud youth, your fall is coming,
for, judging by your father,
in not too many months
goat-hair will sprout
     not just on cheeks
but, trust me, lad, all over!

The Fire-Bearer

by Brett Rutherford

     adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xii, 110

Something there is

about Myiscus's eyes.

Heroic-statue eyes are fixed

on distant horizons;

those on portrait busts

are blank as unhatched

eggs, a mystery,

but his? He blinks,

and thunderbolts

all but knock me over.

If he sees something bright,

he hurls sun's warmth

upon me. Has Eros

made one youth so powerful,

borrowing from Zeus, Apollo,

and Eos, shafts of light

no mortal should possess?

Hail, Myiscus,

fire-bearer of Love,

guiding my way, a lamp

of friendship eternal.

The Hungry Eye

In later life, Meleager moved the island of Kos. Heliodora had died, and now Meleager's wandering eye turned to the beautiful young men of the island, who seemed to make a sport of seducing their older admirers. The raging jealousies of Meleager's earlier poems gives way to a voluptuous appreciation of human beauty. So now I commence adapting these poems...

THE HUNGRY EYE

by Brett Rutherford

     adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xii, 106

I swear, until just now

I was deceived about Beauty.

One thing has crowded

all other Beauties out,

this one: perfect! My hungry eye

feeds on sunlight; sunlight

feeds off magnificent Myiscus.

All those I thought I adored

seem shapeless lumps, or stones

fit only for a blind man's

fancy, reading augury.

He, this one, is everything

and all things. Do my own eyes,

drunk with pleasure, fasten

on his, as soul to soul

are drawn together?

Autumn in Alexandria

by Brett Rutherford

There is one who waits for me,
sheltered from wind and wave
behind a Corinthian column.
The priests have gone,
the lamps have died:
all fled the thunderstorm in fear.
Across the way, librarians
have shuttered knowledge up
against the idiot howling
of intemperate weather.
Every dog is in a ditch
while untethered cats
cling to the upper limbs
of the pliant willows.
Nobody has any business
out of doors; nobody,
that is, except the one who waits.

I watch, snug and safe,
from my high window.
He seems to have lashed himself
to that pillar of solid stone.
Marble will not bend or sway,
and in its leeward shade
his cloak hangs limp; he leans
as though he had nothing to do
but to await my arrival.
(I dare not go. Bruises and breaks
at my age are dangerous.)

Storm without name,
three hours now
the rain has been horizontal,
the roar of wind a long,
monotonous engine.
I, who am of tempests
tossed often enough,
feel a kinship with thunder
and its maker. One thing
alone I ask of you:

Lift up that column,
that patient loiterer,
and the stone he stands upon,
into some calm place
above the cloudy rage.
In stillness keep him safe
until your blow and bluster
recede to nothing,
until the floods flood back
and storm drains regain
their proper direction,
until the cats regain
their dry-fur dignity
and the dogs resume
whatever it is
dogs do of a sunny day.

Two eyes regard me
from out the thunder-head.
“You are a fool,”
the demon says.
“What makes you think
you are the one he braves
the elements to see?

Did your poems win
his favor?
Does he pass your books out
to one and all,
call you his friend and mentor,
implying more
to those who mark the pause,
and the sigh,
each time the syllables
of your exalted name
depart his lips?”

“Of this one I am sure,”
I protest. “Spare him!” —

“Shelter he took,”
the sly one assures me,
“just where he knew
you would see,
and be tormented so.

“On other nights he lurks
on the unlit stairway
behind the library,
not for you — fool! —
but for the first who comes
and extends a hand.” —

“No, he is noble. Poets
he loves above all!” —

“Two moons ago he let himself
go home with some astrologer,
and then a geometer who said
he had the most appealing angles,
and then with a captain just back
from Rome with Rhenish wine.” —

“I’ll not hear this! Gossip vile!” —

“Most of your scholar-rivals
frequent that place at night,
and most have noticed him,
and he, them. He uses your name
to make acquaintance, you know.

“Now, look, Callimachus,
there comes Lysander,
leaning against the gale
and making his way
to the sheltered columns.”

“Lysander! The worst
of the worst! A greeting-card
scribbler of maudlin verse!” —

“Look! He has reached your friend.
They converse.
A hand is extended.
A hand is taken.
One cloak covers two.
They drop out of sight.” —

“Ah, well,” the demon jeers.
“Any poet in a storm.”

Street Scene

by Brett Rutherford

He knew these streets by heart,

and could, if blinded, find his way

through every winding lane

of the old city. Some things

were ever the same, others

as sudden as meteors,

such as the kohl-eyed woman,

just now, who offered him

a basket of figs and serpents,

lid lifted just far enough to show

forked tongues and amber eyes.

One lane, off to the east

of the Scribes' Alley, was empty

(was he that late?); another,

too near the sailors' dens,

was vacant, too. One turn,

then two, and then a third

and then he leaned to look

where two young men

squatted like beggars

in Alexandria's

most infamous alley.

One spoke, in Attic Greek

as pure as poetry,

"Hail, old man, if man you be.

You may choose between

the two of us, for no one else

is left of our brotherhood.

"Dionysius we serve, for silver."

The other, in coarser tone

coaxed him impatiently,

"What, why so choosy?

He doesn't want so much,

the pretty one, while I,

I charge a stiffer fee,

if you take my meaning.

The math is simple,

if you have a purse:

He charges by the night;

I, by the inch."

Callimachus,

out far too late,

or far too early,

judging by either moon or sun,

just shook his head and muttered,

"Neither!"