by Brett Rutherford
after Callimachus Epigram IV
If after saying “farewell” to me —
not a good wish but a poison arrow —
you turn to my friends, and, laughing,
mock me when I am just out of hearing.
You have too many teeth. Hypocrisy
has its way with canines and molars,
and soon enough you’ll lose them all.
whose aches are near deadly, and which
they call, with bitter irony, “wisdom.”
by Brett Rutherford
from Callimachus Epigram VII
He thought to earn merit
from gods, and in the eyes of men,
by tending the grave of one
who was not his ancestor dear.
his father’s
second wife.
And what did he get
for his trouble?
and fell upon him.
His brains spilled out;
the flowered
garland
still in his clenched hand.
of she who hated you, hates on.
by Brett Rutherford
And just like that
the night sky lifted up,
curled up and halfway
over. It was no sky
but a roof. Who knew?
two-eyed and pale
and grimacing. I froze
in terror while others fled.
His darting orbs followed
the escaping horde.
He knows we are here,
that maybe millions
call this a world. A hole
a million miles across
opened, and sounds
like trumpets issued forth.
It was his mouth, and this
the call to judgment.
The sky resumes
its familiar blackness.
Manna still falls
and feeds us,
but we have gone mad.
Our days are numbered
and we know it.
Doom tramples over us.
The day of wrath has come.
by Brett Rutherford
Doctor, I'm glad
you had time to squeeze me in.
No, nothing physical.
My limbs are all intact.
I am far past
adolescence
as you can see:
segment after segment,
a full hundred.
Sex life? Oh that's
no problem.
Here under the carpet
the living's easy.
Food falls, and fluids
ooze to puddled ponds
where there's enough
for everyone.
The human never vacuums.
We party all night,
and as for sex,
God! I've lost count.
It must be my mind
that's gone all wrong
on me. I just go through
the motions of eating,
wrestling with my brothers,
topping the others
in the orgy crevices.
They say you help,
that on this couch
I can talk it through.
I can hardly say it,
what troubles me.
I sleep, too long,
and far too deep,
and in my dreams
I am pursued
by thousand-legged
monsters. Yes,
millipedes! There,
I have said it.
They seem so real,
I wake up screaming.
I know there is no
such animal.
Mythology, I know.
Old fairy tales.
Tell me, doctor,
what is a centipede to do?
by Brett Rutherford
Because you dream
of parents gone,
dead siblings, the face
and voice and sayings
of a wise grandmother,
you imagine them alive
somewhere, solid, fine,
and feasting as never
they fed in a starved life,
or as flimsy ghosts
in a tinsel harp heaven
where white-toast angels
attend them, all this
in desperate wish
that you had a soul
and would travel with it
to the same beyond.
Wishing does not
make it so. The soul,
subtracted, is not the line
between a body
and a corpse.
The soul is a word
denoting no thing
existent in time
or space, an object
of language only.
No thing is
Nothing, and from Nothing
it is not permitted to say
that something comes.
Of Nothing, no substance,
quality or power adheres.
Note how a fool is made
by adding a capital letter
to lower-case nothing —
nothing, null, zero,
Nothing, ah sublime,
extant omnipotent —
as though to kick upstairs
the non-existent into
a respectable place.
Like floating reefs
or fatal Sirens,
beware the lure
of floating abstractions!
by Brett Rutherford
1
"Infinite" means only
"unimaginably large."
Infinite in number
cannot apply
to any existent thing,
for if it were,
it would crowd out
all other existing things,
filling the universe
with copies of itself,
cancelling me,
this poem,
and you who read.
2
Infinite in duration
by which we mean
a thing is eternal —
the arrogance
of meteor alone
in space, of smug
planets whose mass
has cleared their path
in endless dull orbit —
the first amoeba's
clear intent
to outlive every one
of his kind —
the urge of every tree
to grow forever
and devour the sun
that feeds it —
means only
that one becomes
"unimaginably old,"
until the sweep
of space and time,
the tug of gravity,
collapses all,
one bubble gone
among the many.
Photo from Wikimedia
by Brett Rutherford
when Manhattan shone
not white with diamonds
but lurid crimson, Masque
of the Red Death, tombs
filling as fast as luxury
apartments. A year
a particular face flashed
eyes you thought you knew
but that deathly pallor,
sunken cheeks, unsteady
gait made you look away,
obituaries first, that year
you could not count
on two hands the friends
you lost. One Sunday,
at the cutout record bins
of Tower Records
(the classical annex of course),
in quest of Handel operas
no one had sung since
Handel’s own day, or some
obscure Russian symphonist
or everyone pretended not
to see. Rail-thin in shabby clothes,
torn sneakers, he hurried
from bin to bin, all bent
on the big boxes: Wagner’s Ring
(Furtwangler and Solti, no less),
one each of all the Verdi greats,
a heap of Sutherland and Sills
in all the bel canto must-haves.
up to his chin, he tottered,
shambled, and pulled himself
to the counter. A few in line
gave way; others behind
pulled back at the sight
of the tell-tale lesions
upon his neck and arms.
he could do to carry
the heap of albums away.
No one spoke. Eyes turned
so as not to watch
as he passed the store’s
long windows, to where
a waiting cab, trunk
open, swallowed up
the opera horde
and its new owner.
each and all,
to our searches.
I knew too well
what this was about.
He had come into
a little money, his life
insurance cashed in,
most likely, and by god,
he was going to die
owning every damn opera
he had ever wanted.
by Brett Rutherford
In memory of François Vatel (1631 –
24 April 1671)
for one's planet,
for a nation, even,
is honorable
where the worthy great
feast endlessly with
poets and composers
all around them.
over dishonor
seems quaint,
and even ridiculous
when psychopaths
caught, just whirl and turn,
accusing their accusers.
of the great Condé,
a better man
than his better,
fled the banquet,
hid in his room,
fell on his sword
over a spoiled dinner.
galloping to Chantilly
as ordered, no one came
with the one ingredient
intended to delight
Louis Quatorze —
and gone, when one tureen
could be tipped, one course
converted from bland
to sublime. It tipped;
the waiter’s face turned white
when nothing came;
the tureen was empty,
as all down the line
of two thousand dukes,
barons, widows and mistresses,
each silver vessel
was tipped
and came up likewise
void as a cenotaph —
above, the great chef
impaled himself and died
for want of lobster sauce.
by Brett Rutherford
Newark, New Jersey in 1969.
I lived there, in student rooms
not far from where
the burned houses still smoked.
One Saturday I stood
outside a downtown theater,
scrawny white poet amid
bereted and tree-tall giants,
black men brimming
with gasoline anger.
Arms that had hurled
molotovs, bodies
that had taken a beating
and kept on coming,
pressed in the line
behind me.
I mind-read dark thoughts
directed at me, at what
might happen
if they saw me after,
but we were here
for one common purpose.
The marquee decreed it:
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.
This was not to be missed.
I would sit with anyone,
anywhere, to see this.
It was that important.
I sat in my seat of seats,
fourth row, center.
All those I feared
were far behind me.
Not half an hour in,
the men began screaming.
With cries of "Oh my god!"
and "No, no, no!"
I heard them rush
to the exits.
When zombies ate innards,
I heard the sound behind
of muffled vomiting;
more footsteps retreated.
By film's end
I was the only one left.
I strode through the lobby
smiling.
by Brett Rutherford
Well, that was a “carder,”
the Englishman said,
after his rude encounter
with a pack of dogs.
How quaint to call trauma
un mauvais quart d'heure,
a bad quarter-hour,
quart d’heure
just long enough
for the bullies to pull
your books, your coat,
backpack, umbrella,
and send them flying
over a high fence
quart d’heure
just time enough
for a rapist to do
what he wants to you,
zip up, and flee
the scene
quart d’heure
ill quadrant
of the clock of doom,
the time it takes
to bleed out,
pass out, expire
quart d’heure,
nine hundred
and thirty seconds,
to be precise,
the stone-cold interval
of falling out of love.
by Brett Rutherford
