The Cats of Kilkenny

by Brett Rutherford

Just like a bunch

of Hessian soldiers

garrisoned and bored

in rebellious

Ireland, to take bets

on which of two cats,

tied tail-to tail and flung

over a washer-woman's

clothes-line, which

would prevail -- the black

or the tabby?

Both toms

to make it worse,

they tore one another

bloody, no place to run,

no way to signal

polite surrender,

they howled and clawed

and howled

and clawed and howled --

until an outraged

officer came out

from his beer-stupor

and demanded an end

to the feline fray.

One lop of the sword

and both cats fell,

fled tail-less

to opposite points

of the compass.

When higher-ups heard

Mrs. Kelley's complaint

of two bloody tails

amid her husband's

long underwear,

the soldiers swore

to a tall-tale of tails:

the charms of one

lady cat, sunning herself

on a fence top,

provoked an act

of mutual cannibalism

between two Romeos.

"Ate one another, they did,"

one soldier explained.

Cat fight of the century

in fair Kilkenny,

completely consumed

they were, all gone,

all but the tails.

Callimachus at Alexandria

Adaptations and expansions from the ancient Greek, by Brett Rutherford. Callimachus was born around 310 BCE in Cyrene, a Greek city in what is now Libya. He found his way to Alexandria, and after some years of poverty as a school-teacher, he was noticed by one of the Ptolemies and called to court. In accounts written centuries later, he is described as either working at, or being in charge of, the Great Library of Alexandria. He is known to have written some 800 works, including an epic on the secret origins of various gods and mythological figures. The only extant complete works of this ancient Greek master are 64 epigrams, and his eight Hymns to gods in the Homeric manner.

This volume presents new translations/adaptations of most of the epigrams, and two segments from the Homeric hymns. These poems are personal, imbued with the poet’s own personality; they are usually short, compressed, and brutally to the point. He did not invent the epigram, but created examples of breath-taking beauty. Even when the poem is an imaginary tombstone epitaph, the slightly self-mocking world-view of Callimachus shines through. Fate is brutal, life is short, and heroism mixed with passion are allowed to shine, even if they do not triumph.

Stuffy classicists of the past, mired in Puritanism and sexual repression, seemed unwilling to read between the lines and let Callimachus speak. We can now see him as the high-minded, aloof, gay librarian who lives down the hall, with a never-ending array of younger male companions, a man who lives well, eats well, and veers between joy and desolation, all on a librarian’s salary.

The poems in this volume are not literal translations. Although they contain most of the Greek’s words or phrases, much has been added to flesh out the narrative and to create a more modern, speaking voice. Other things are added to make each poem self-explicate so that footnotes are not needed. To varying extent, then, these are paraphrases, adaptations, and expansions. The form is improvised free verse, with a nod to the elegance and restraint of Roman poetry.

“Love Spells,” a poem by Callimachus’s friend and successor Theocritus, is also included.

The Poet's Press. This is the 305th publication of The Poet’s Press. Published October, 2022. Paperback, 82 pages, 6 x 9 inches. ISBN 9798355028183. $12.00.

Opus 300 - The Poet's Press Anthology

 

The 50th Anniversary Anthology — FREE DOWNLOAD. The Poet's Press celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2021. This 406-page oversize anthology contains the best and representative selections spanning the whole history of the press -- from long out-of-print chapbooks up to the present day. Brett Rutherford has chosen work from 146 poets and writers, including 363 poems, two play excerpts, and five prose works. Works are selected not only from single-author chapbooks and books, but also from the numerous anthologies published by the press.

This volume is full of surprises. Some of the best poems of Poet's Press principal authors like Barbara A. Holland and Emilie Glen are collected here along with works from poets as diverse as Hugo, Longfellow, Goethe, Scott, and Shelley. The Greenwich Village poets of the last Bohemia of the 1960s and 1970s are joined by their successors across the Hudson from the "Poets of the Palisades" poetry community. What all the poems share is that they are a delight to read.

This book also includes a year-by-year chronology of the publications of the press, a bibliography of authors and titles, and a list of all poets published in books from The Poet's Press and its imprints.

The Poet's Press. This is the 300th publication of The Poet’s Press. Published November, 2022. PDF ebook, 406 pages, 8-1/2 x 11 inches. CLICK HERE FOR FREE DOWNLOAD. Readers are encouraged to download and share this book. A print edition will be made available by special order for libraries and archives, but this book will NOT be sold on Amazon and will NOT be sold in bookstores.

An Oak Leaf, Solitary

 by Brett Rutherford

     after Lermontov

A single, solitary leaf of oak,
sensing disaster imminent
and prematurely brown,
breaks free of its tall parent
and in a fit of panic
hitches whatever breeze
comes first, and from it goes
above the treeline to cloud-
top, to where the Boreal
gods make annual rounds
from Arctic to Tropic.

Though he is young,
he has dreamt the death
of those who came before him,
     a holocaust,
hecatombs of his brothers piled.
From bark and root he knows
all history, an acorn chronicle
dating to Titans and Olympians.

In sight of the great inland sea
there grows a most splendid chinar —
an ancient sycamore — round top
a perfect hemisphere, million-leafed,
green, yellow, brown branded bark smooth,
rain-swept to glossy sheen, proud tree
which in the warm Crimean clime
has grown to the height of giants of old.

It is a citadel and a city of birds,
an avian metropolis of a thousand songs.
Men honor it, and spare the axe
for under the shade of one such,
Hippocrates taught medicine, and Socrates
befuddled the mind of Plato!

“Tree of Wonder! Give me shelter!”
So speaks the pilgrim leaf at edge of shade,
begging a restful interlude from sun
and from the decaying elements. “Regard me
as one from the desolate North, too soon
apart from my oaken sire, too young
to know what fraught danger awaited me.

“I trusted the wind, defying gravity.
I have been taken I know not where.
Dried up, my strength has abandoned me.
One day among your wholesome leaves so green
I would pass in your kind shadow.
Tales I can tell them of wonders seen.”

The sycamore is silent. Birds sing
oblivious, obsessed with love and feeding,
feathers of every hue a-flutter among
the broad leaves and spreading branchlets.
One song he understands: a lark
goes on and on about a mermaid
it has seen within the nearby bay.

“That was no mermaid,” the oak leaf offers.
“Fair bird, it was a submarine, a thing of war.
Iron arrows it carries, and a wall of fire
it can unleash upon both forest and city.”
But on the lark sings, of a golden palace,
and talking fish in a jeweled sky.

“Tree of Wonder! Heed my warning!”
So speaks the rasping and withered guest.
“The sky is full of metal birds. Bombs fall
and flatten towns full of innocent people.
Lunatics rage. Wheeled juggernauts
stake out imaginary lines and kill
to defend them. Humans’ hot breath
has swept the Polar Regions and set alight
dry woods and wolds. The gods themselves
would have not meted out so cruel a thing,
as they would smite the smiter first. Instead,
every last shrub will be crushed beneath them.”

Finally, the sycamore replies,
in voice as sweet as the oak had been stern:
“Always have I been tall, and green, and free.
If some thieving wind tears off a leaf,
     or branch, I grow a new one.

“Nest-builders have many times told us
of dark times coming! Stupid birds!
Every hawk is the death of them.
‘End of the world!’ they chatter on,
endlessly migrating north and south,
never content with where they are.

“We have no need of your bad messages.
Perfect we are, and perfect we shall be.
Does not an ocean nourish our roots?
Is not the sky the biggest sky of all?
Are not my birds the biggest crowd ever?” —

“Tree of Wonder!” Please remember!
Have not wars come and gone? Have not
your kind been burned and plowed under?” —

“Always have I been tall, and green, and free.
Be on your way and find some other shelter.
Sun blesses me, rain falls on me, the moon
dashes up and over to lull my sleep. Begone,
you dusty and malformed, tawny orphan!”

“Fool!” cries out the oak leaf. “I flee
your hateful shade on the next breeze upwards.
Just as you shed your bark, so too
you shed all troubling memories,
as innocent of history as a new-born babe.”

All the high sycamore counters
is its same idiot refrain:
“Always have I been tall, and green, and free.”

Mikhail Lermontov’s short lyric poem, “An Oak Leaf,”(1841)  is famous. It personifies the poet as a drifting oak leaf, flying from Russia into the warm clime of Crimea (part of the poet’s military life). The mysterious tree Lermontov calls the “chinar” is not so exotic as it seems, for the chinar is the sycamore or plane tree, whose "Western" variety is now a common sight in parks, public places and streets. My goal in making a new English adaptation of a poem is to make it into something new, so here I have expanded Lermontov’s original and made the sycamore tree into a narcissist speaking lines out of today’s headlines. And the oak leaf carries a warning of climate change, the last thing Donald Sycamore wants to hear.

 

 

Deceit

by Brett Rutherford

     adapted from Meleager,

     The Greek Anthology V, 184

I need not spy on you to know things,

unfaithful girl! I am a poet, after all,

and gods bring me little messages.

That you are lying is self-evident.

Call not on your gods to defend

falsehoods as black as night. Say

not that you slept alone, alone

in this bed you swore I was the only

guest to sweat its sheets with love,

alone you say, when I know otherwise.

"Alone! Alone" you repeat like a parrot.

Was not Cleon here an hour before me?

His smell is all over you: garlic

and axle-grease, a whiff of manure.

Gods gave me this nose for a reason!

"Oh no, not him!" you swear, profane

a divinity again with your oath:

watch lest your tongue fall out,

and half your teeth as well, liar!

I think I'll just leave. This mattress stinks

of the evil you have done in it.

Or shall I stay and read some Homer?

That should take some hours, I think.

Yes, I'll do that, and watch you fret

and steal quick glances at the door.

He's coming back again, I venture

to guess. With wine and a friend or two.

Well, let them come. I'll just read on.

Invoke your gods: you are no Helen.

Epigrams on Gravity

by Brett Rutherford

1

Gravity unkind to flesh,

the reason old folks

go not about

without their clothing,

what's up's

antithesis

2

Gravity,

the suicide's best friend

at cliff-edge, bridge

railing and tower-top

3

Avenging force,

weaver of sink-holes

that swallow the wicked,

lord of the nine-day fall

from here to hell

4

Gravity, the first

of the race of Titans,

the resultant between

creation's messy chaos

and the collapse to null

5

Gravity felt everywhere

and instantly, speed

of light no barrier,

transcendent yet not

a thing in itself --

no I and Thou

concerning Gravity --

not even a force

so-called, it is

the price of being.

God Has

by Brett Rutherford

GOD HAS

no wife

no son

no beard

no lady friends

or boyfriends

no grudge

no diet

no plan, no

thou shalt nots

no enemies

no favored kings

or princes

no national

boundaries

no favorite colors

no winning teams

no prayers heard

no idea where

the lost pet went

no warehouse

where the dead are kept,

no tally of names

and ancestry

no more in one place

than another,

no Golden Age

remembered,

no covenants there

to be reminded of

no wish

to be bothered at all

oh, and no name

to call him by,

no anagrams or sigils,

yet not, assuredly not

nothing at all

since his or its

eidolon persists.

One thing only

asserts itself

everywhere

and instantly,

a thing ironically

called "g"

elusive and

ineluctable, a thing

that makes anvils drop

on the heads of fools,

or apples to

the open hand --

Gravity!

Father and Son

The Titans were a nasty lot. Saturn (Kronos in Greek) always devoured his own offspring to prevent a new generation of gods. A rock was substituted for Zeus, so that the boy could be reared in secret in an oak tree. Later he would attack his father, cutting him open and releasing his brothers and sisters from the Titan's belly.

All of which provoked me to write this little epigram this morning:

FATHER AND SON

Saturn, thou sluggard,

swallowing stone,

mistaking a rock

for a swaddled babe,

you will pay!

Zeus slipped away,

oak-coddled

by his mother Rhea,

taking with acorn-milk

the seed of rebellion.

One day your bloated

belly will be cut,

the never-digested

rocks and Titans

spewn out to make

a whole new Mythos,

somewhat less cruel

and capricious

than the elder

monstrosities.

By Night and Lamp

by Brett Rutherford

    after Meleager, Greek Anthology V, 8

After so many nights,

so many sighs, so

many love-cries flung

echoing into the courtyard,

we made a solemn oath

to love and be true

to one another.

Poor as the poorest

first-year students,

what had we there

to swear by?

                         Night,

the starry night itself

we swore by, and by

the fluttering lamp

with which we found

one another's limbs

to press together,

by these we pledged.

Were you my witness,

Night? Do you remember,

Lamp, cold now in my hand

as I refill the oil?

He sits across from me,

not eating the meal

I sold my best ring to buy,

and says his mind has changed.

"Your oath!" I moan.

"To Night?" he laughs.

"To one night passing,

yes, it made you love

me better. But Day

erases Night.

Who knows what comes

tomorrow?"

                      "The Lamp?"

"It was out before

I kissed you goodbye.

New day, new wick,

new love, I say."

Shrugging, he rises,

and turns his back to me.

Fickle as running water, he!

Later, I write. The door

is open to the common

corridor. Voices I hear.

My lamp turned up, I see

three figures passing.

Someone's door opens,

closes. From there

inside, his laughter rises.

I need no Lamp to see,

eyes closed, how two on one

undress him and have their way.

Mock me, O Lamp and Night,

I have learned my lesson.

The Customer

by Brett Rutherford

    after Palladus, Greek Anthology V, 257.

Last night I saw Zeus --

I ought to know from how

my eyes hurt, flashed

as they were with a glint

of his visage. Oh yes,

I averted my view,

but no other one

than the boss of Olympus

left Lydia's bedroom

just as her candle dimmed

and a rooster, premature,

announced that rosy-

fingered morning to come.

Now Lydia's no Leda,

Danae or Europa.

No swan flew off,

no bull destroyed

her household gods

as he made a new door

to the back garden,

and no umbrella

was needed as Zeus

slipped out solidly.

Virgin princesses get

raging bulls and birds

puffed out with feathers,

or the warm inflow

of golden waters --

Lydia, the commonest

of common women,

for whom courtesan

is too polite a term,

she gets a rag-robed

shaggy old man,

counting out coppers

as he negotiates

how long, and at what

angle they engaged.

Only his eyes, cerulean

gave him away

as he slunk off after.

Hera would never suspect.

Gods here in Greece

are too close for comfort.

Too Many Arrows

by Brett Rutherford

     after Meleager, Greek Anthology, V, 215

Love, listen to me.

If not to me, then heed

my interceding Muse.

Sleepless each night,

pining for Heliodora,

all I can do is let

the Muse direct

my weary stylus.

Why, sly godling,

does your little bow

send arrows only my way?

So many have pierced me,

all writ with the name

of one lady, over and over

inscribed "Heliodora,"

that I am more porcupine

than man. I bristle, I bleed

with all the fire-fletched

shafts. What can I do?

Do I have to insult you,

prompter of marriage,

and instigator of progeny,

the delight of maidens

and pining youths?

Must I write here:

See Meleager, poet,

murdered by Cupid.

Be A Good Sport

by Brett Rutherford

     after Meleager, Greek Anthology V, 213

This thing of Love

that possesses me

has a boy's love

of ball games.

Watch, as I rip

the heart from my breast

and toss it your way.

Catch it, Heliodora,

be a good sport!

Play ball, I plead

with my little Love.

Toss not my heart

away where any old

passerby can find it

and seeing my name on it,

mock me for a fool.

Love's game has rules:

with one hand or both,

catch my throbbing heart.

Then, cupped in those

tender fingers, gently

return it to me, or throw

it to your sister there,

she almost, but not quite,

as fair. Play not the foul

of dropping it, ah, no!

Fever Dream

by Brett Rutherford

Off to the hospital then,

if it is not too late.

I go on foot, wild

the wind of late

October buffets me.

At the arrival gate

where ambulances

bring those who come

only to exit by way

of the morgue,

the Angel of Death

swoops down

along with leaves

and torn-off branches

to block my way,

a clotted cloud

made of black gauze,

a sooty skein of rag

with nothing in it.

It blocks my way,

and I must tear

this rotten shroud

away to pass.

And I do, I do.

A high-desk nurse

refuses to admit me.

"You came on foot,"

she tells me.

"That means there's

nothing wrong with you."

Around the back I go

to another wing,

where I find others

just like myself,

each swatting away

a rag-doll Reaper,

some on all fours

crawling up slope

to the healing place.

I am in and out

of a makeshift bed,

in what feels like

a basement corridor.

A robot arrives.

Prongs force my mouth

open. A light shines in.

Four beeps, a flash

of blue light,

and it wheels away.

No one explains.

At last a doctor

tells me to follow him

to a consulting room

where I am told

I have Chajeebie's

Syndrome. Thank

the gods, not COVID!

"I can't deal with another

of these," the elder doctor

says. "Call in my son."

Hand over mouth, he flees.

A nurse comes in.

"We called a car," she says.

"But what about treatment?"

I ask. "Treatment?" she scoffs.

"Don't you know Chajeebies

is a termy?"

                      "Termy?"

"A terminal condition.

You'll be gone by midnight.

The car will take you

to Allegheny Cemetery.

They'll show you a little

movie, and you can pick

a plot you like.

"Have a nice day!"