If Only They Saw

Eyes, eyes, eyes, bright
as a volcano’s fire,
why do they not burn
one another up entirely?

The gods so peopled the earth
with beautiful men, and yet
so many sit, ignoring the other
like separate rivulets
of lava, one touch of which
could set a tree ablaze.

This one opposite that,
each reading his book —
blond hair, jet black,
chestnut brown, red locks
curling, a shoulder bared,
hand turning a scroll just so,
neck nape, the curves from

thighs to sandaled
feet, the noble line
of brow to nose unbroken.
All could be models
for some masterpiece.

Oh, nothing would get done
if they all suddenly noticed,
but then, I wonder
if after harvest came,
hearth-fires secured
with winter wood-pile,
and wars averted or never
even dreamt of, why not?

What joy if each devoted
to love and worship
all such beauty, his life?

In the House of Eros

by Brett Rutherford

His mother invited me home

to read poetry, she said,

to her invited guests.

I paled as I entered:

firefighters in uniform,

mailmen and UPS drivers,

flip-flopped teenagers

with cans of beer a-chug

but when her two pale sons

took me in hand

to the banquet table

I was charmed. Both food

and wine were exquisite.

Various hands touched me

from different directions

under the table.

I read my poems.

Some listeners swooned,

while others nodded off

into a stupored state.

The chamber music

was suddenly enhanced

by strange percussionists

and muted trumpets.

The brothers, one in front

and one behind me,

led me up stairs

toward their darkened

bedroom. Along one

corridor a line had formed:

men lounged, boys leered

as they eyed an open doorway.

The sounds inside

were unmistakable.

"Ignore that!" I was warned,

as warm lips kissed me.

"Mother is incorrigible!"

As I was pulled along, I saw

how the line extended

from their mother's door.

Those at the end

were younger than those

who jostled each other

to enter and have their way.

I swear the far ones

were no more than Boy Scouts.

Behind them stood --- dwarfs? --

no, the spitting images

of cartoon characters,

the Mouse, the Duck,

the Cat, the Rabbit

and with lewd smiles

and belts undone.

"This -- this!" I cried,

"is beyond prostitution!"

The last thing I saw,

as I was pulled

into welcome darkness

was the end of the line

where various household

appliances waited their turn,

wheezing and humming,

tallest among them

the upright vacuum cleaner.

The vacuum cleaner, my god,

even the vacuum cleaner?

At this I swooned

and had to be carried

to whatever it was

they had in mind for me.

I awoke in my own bed,

in clothing not my own.

Under the door,

another scarlet-fringed

envelope invited me.

Dare I go?

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?

Strip Woods

by Brett Rutherford

Immodest, these

shivering sycamores

wiggle to Offenbach's

Orpheus in Hades

can-can, the trees'

strip-tease for all

to view. Maples

askew in their scarlet

underwear, oaks

making the wind pluck off

one leaf at a time

from their muscled

limbs, till streams

are clogged with them.

The brazen gingko

fan-dancer

sheds all its gold

pasties in one

great shrug.

And there they stand

amid the cheers and whoops

and drunk applause:

wide trunks with peeling

bark, old maple ladies

raked with lightning marks

and fungal warts, saplings

so thin and straight, no curve

to stir the loins, stick-twigs

and gnarled fingers, ring-

hungry and desperate

to be taken home, each

taking one final can-can

kick and calling out

Don't forget me, mister!

You saw me naked!

Knecht Ruprecht, or The Bad Boy's Christmas

by Brett Rutherford

Don't even think of calling your
mother or father.
They cannot hear you.
No one can help you now.
I came through the chimney
in the form of a crow.

You are my first this Christmas.
You are a very special boy, you know.
You have been bad,
bad every day,
dreamt every night
of the next day's evil.

It takes a lot of knack
to give others misery
for three hundred and sixty
consecutive days!

How many boys have you beaten?
How many small animals killed?
Half the pets in this town
have scars from meeting you.

Am I Santa Claus? Cack, ack, ack!
Do I look like Santa, you little shit?
Look at my bare-bone skull,
my eyes like black jelly,
my tattered shroud.

My name is Ruprecht,
Knecht Ruprecht.
I'm Santa's cousin! Cack, ack, ack!

Do stop squirming and listen--
(of course I am hurting you!)
I have a lot of visits to make.
My coffin is moored to your chimney.
My vultures are freezing their beaks off.

But as I said, you are special.
You are my Number One boy.
When you grow up,
you are going to be a noxious skinhead,
maybe a famous assassin.
Your teachers are already afraid of you.

In a year or two you will discover girls,
a whole new dimension of cruelty and pleasure.

Now let us get down to business.
Let me get my bag here.

Presents? Presents! Cack, ack, ack!
See these things? They are old,
old as the Inquisition,
make dental instruments look like toys.

No, nothing much, no permanent harm.
I shall take a few of your teeth,
and then I shall put them back.

This is going to hurt. There--
the clamp is in place.
Let's see--where to plug in
those electrodes?

Oh, now, don't whimper and pray to God!
As if you ever believed! Cack, ack, ack!
I know every tender place in a boy's body.
There, that's fine! My, look at the blood!
      Look at the blood!

You'll be good from now on? That's a laugh.
Am I doing this to teach you a lesson?
I am the Punisher. I do this
because I enjoy it! I am ... just ... like ... you!

There is nothing you can do!
I can make a minute of pain seem like a year!
And no one will ever believe you!

Worse yet, you cannot change.
Tomorrow you shall be more hateful than ever.
The world will wish you had never been born.

Well now, our time is up. Sorry for the mess.
You may tell your mother
     you had a nosebleed.

Your father is giving you a hunting knife
for which I am sure you will have a thousand uses.

Just let me lick those tears from your cheeks.
I love the taste of children's tears.

My, it is late! Time to fly! Cack, ack, ack!
I shall be back next Christmas Eve!

rev. 2022

The Dark One

by Brett Rutherford

In memory of Scott Forsgren

We laughed in the graveyard
I wrote into poems and he
traced out in pen-and-ink.
His fingers raked earth
in the lake-shore hillside
until a bone that might have been
Jeannette Culberton’s finger
came to light, his trophy.

He walked one summer night
across the college campus
not knowing anyone, migraine
vision colliding with my identical
pain and misery. Two weeks
he stayed; like brothers we shared
a chaste bond, not to be broken.
I could not go home to parents;
something had riven him likewise
from home and family. Wagner
and Schubert, Mahler and Bach
bonded us. Moonlight and lake
and the transcendent stars
were our true homeland.
Some friendships
are instant, and last forever.

I moved to New York. I heard
he was swept away by religion,
at least for a while, and then
I heard no more of him.

Decades later, at a college reunion
for those of the Woodstock years
I heard it said casually
that he had drowned himself,
rock-weighted, self-hurled
from the top of a bridge.

In mind’s eye I saw
his weighted jacket,
the too-deep water,
the ignominy of a found body,
the pointless inquest,
the baffled, pained, guilty faces
of the left-behind.

I left the reception,
closed tight the door
of the cinder-block dorm
and wept uncontrollably.
That half-an-hour’s grief
should be enough for anyone,
but it did not abate.

What was the use of his death
except to those who stand and weep —
who must, in one life,
fill, and refill the cup of grief,
so early, and so many times?

What would I not have given to save him?
Why is self-murder a crime against the living?

If only magic could bring him back,
I would sit with ring and book
until the world collapsed
into its core of iron,
until the loam of the soil parted
and his dark laughter exploded
from his unremembered grave!

If only souls were immortal!
(The heart breaks, wishing it were so,
hoping to force from nature
what it cannot give).

If my hand raked soil
to touch the tip
of his dead fingers,
it would be our first
and only caress.

Afterwards

 by Brett Rutherford

An unpeopled metropolis,

stopped clocks —

abandoned cars, the doors

left open —

wind howling

through broken panes —

a siren, unattended,

howls for days

then fades to silence —

the open sky

criss-crossed by clouds,

but neither hawk nor crow

descend on downdrafts.

Two rivers meet, and what

new flow they form

is nameless now. Even

the compass points

have been forgotten,

map meaningless

with no one to read it.

The wheel of time grinds on.

All places are the same.

Concrete and granite,

steel and aluminum,

columns of marble

with their wreath'd tops

sacred to no one now.

They gasped their last,

those creators, users,

and inheritors.

Flames lick

the horizon, while

angry tides erode.

Who made all this?

Who knows?

What is this thing

that flaps and tatters

with frail white leaves,

glued up between covers?

Those black scribbles

must have meant something.

Did these lost beings

possess a language?

Is this where they put

their dreams and ideas?

Were they capable

of reason?

It seems not.

The Funeral of Adonis

by Brett Rutherford

     adapted from Dioscorides, The Greek Anthology, v, 193

Most sombre of all

the night festivals

is that of Adonis,

for whom the Cyprian

Aphrodite forever weeps —

Cleo was beside herself,

a nymph possessed

as the gong sounded

and the low flute

trembled, again

and again, as votive

to Venus, she smote

her own breasts until

they shone in moonlight

     milk-white.

Adonis, uninterested

in womankind,

is mourned each year —

     a wooden bier

with his effigy inside it

is cast upon the waters,

laden with tears

from love-sick maidens,

and mothers whose sons

never lived to be

happy bridegrooms.

If such as Cleo

loved me and mourned me so,

I should happily go

on Adonis's little boat

on its way to Acheron,

and the isles blessed

by gong and flute

and fruit-offering,

sent off in the agony

of a grief-beaten breast.

Watching Her House

 by Brett Rutherford

     after Meleager, The Greek Anthology. V. 191

 

Was it with cunning

that Zenophila occupied

a three-doored house —
front, back,
    and that secret garden door —

so try as one might
there is no place to spy

the comings and goings

of lady and maid,

peddler and ash-carrier,

let alone my rivals

who might at any time

at any door

with signal-knock

and a full purse

gain entry?

 

I forgive nothing.

I wake up in

     a certain state
and forgive all,

if but the door

of its own free will,

unknocked upon,

would open suddenly,

and she, seeing me,

would wave and beckon.

 

But no, I watch, unsure.

She is seldom alone, it seems.

Cloaked figures approach
and turn the corner,
someone younger, taller,
passes the front door
again and again – dare he?

 

Oh, for the hundred eyes

of Argos, the unsleeping,

jealous watchman.
But even Argos can only be

in one place at one time.

 

Night makes it worse,

when every bright star

and that lantern moon

guide her lovers here.
The faint pluck of a kitar,

flute-breath, a tenor high-

note sung pianissimo: if I rush

to confront them, they run

to the other side unseen

to serenade her.

 

Or do I imagine all this? Is she

alone in there, no friend

except her fading lamp,

to which she confesses

her actual yearnings?

Or does she douse the lamp

as eager hands reach for her?

 

Aphrodite, born of Cyprus,
I’ll dedicate a wreath to you
and leave it at her door,

but it shall be a wilted thing
so much have I wept over it.

To Cypris, with regrets, this gift
from Meleager rests

     upon Love’s sepulchre,

for here I learned

     your secret revels,
and here parted ways

forever with my dignity.
Youth! Shun this house!
Wealth! Pass on by!
Folly! just knock three times
and take what Meleager

never won, and losing it,
gained his own soul again.

Lost and Found

 by Brett Rutherford

     adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, v, 177, 176

Missing: one feral child.

Just as the city opened its gates

to admit the farmer and fisherman,

he fled the other way. Say, did you see

how he flew from someone's bedroom --

a child too young to know such things --

and was last seen in the treetops

and then who knows where, as though

the unmanageable child had wings.

If you see such a one, almost naked,

laughing and chattering, foul-mouthed,

prancing about with toy bow-and-arrow,

send word to Zenophila. Poor woman,

she doesn't know the father's name:

the Sky -- the Earth -- the Sea -- who knows?

Throughout the town this boy is hated.

His tricks have ruined marriages

and he is said to lead bad men

to even worse women.

So do not take him in if you prize

the peace of your household.

Summon Zenophila and her net.

Hark! Someone has seen him!

Send for the woman deceived

     who wishes such a being

     to share her hearth and table.

The little archer --

     they've got him cornered.

A ruby ring for whoever lays hands

     and holds him!

Now Zenophila comes -- make way --

fierce as a witch with an evil eye,

she chides the boy,

"Deinos, Eros, deinos!

Dreadful is Love, dreadful!"

Too Much of a Good Thing

by Brett Rutherford

     adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, v. 57

Persistent as a seagull, a cormorant,

as arrogant as a pigeon in the square,

Eros descends on me, earth-bound,

hemmed into one city whose walls

I seldom leave out of sight: target

almost as predictable as a statue —

show me some mercy. Hot arrows

descend weekly, daily — in summer,

I swear, hourly — demanding I pursue

this one and that one, never-ending.

Is it my destiny to fall in love

with everything two-legged?

Before my loins give out, my soul

will part ways with me. Cruel boy,

making the fool of me, a soul, too,

has wings, and what if she leaves?

That Monster Child

The Victory of Eros, Metropolitan Museum

 by Brett Rutherford 

adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, v. 178, v. 177

So there was some lump-sack
of a woman, pounding
at my door. “Come quick!”
she cried. “The mistress
has had your baby!”

“You?” I said. “Maid
of what lady?”—

                                “Zenophila.” —

“Ha!” What mischief is this?
I saw her two weeks back,
her belly as flat
as a school-girl’s.” —

“Nonetheless, there is a child.”

More amazed than angry,
I set out.
Doubtless some prank this was.
There would be laughter later,
     and then wine.

I took my time arriving.
Let them fret, who thought
they could amuse themselves
at my discomfort. But then,
I reached her door, and hearing
an infant’s cry, I froze.

Pushing me in, the maid
rushed over and took
from Zenophila’s arms
a shapeless wad of bedsheets,
a ruby face wrapped tight
in them as an Egyptian mummy.

“Acknowledge your child!” Zenophila
now shrieked, not even offering a hand
or rising to greet me. The nurse,
meanwhile, embared her breast to feed
the red-faced, pug-nosed monster,
its lips a-pucker with a frightful greed.
He'd drain her dry, I warranted,
and squall for more.

                                         “This — this —
is not possible, “ protested I,
pointing to it, and then to her.
“Would you deny it?” protested she.
“Your child and mine. No one
was as surprised as me. I woke,
and there he was, all swaddled up.
I saw your face the moment
I looked at him.”

                                 “That’s not
the way it works!” I told her. “No one
delivers up a baby while she sleeps!
You would have been sick for months,
swollen like a behemoth. Old crones
would have been visiting, with charms
and baby-names.” The maid
regarded me and made the “crazy” sign.
But then this woman, in the bed
I had indeed shared with her, went on:
“You own a house. You need a wife.
There’s nothing to be done
but take us in.”

I was beside myself. “Sell it!”
I shouted. “If it has all its limbs,
some childless couple will take it.” —

“He’s perfect in every way.
A mother knows these things.”—

“He’s biting me!” the maid exclaimed,
pushing the bundle away from her.
“He has long fingernails and teeth,
and I swear he looked at me
indecently when I first showed my breast.”
The snub-nosed monster laughed at this,
and seemed to mumble in a unknown language.

I took a closer look. The cherub-face
bore no resemblance to my own.
It was an imp, a savage, an all-around
monster. “No, sell it this instant!
Ask any passing peddler if his house
is in the countryside, and if
his neighbors need a child to rear.
Let this one grow up to till the fields
or guard a flock of sheep or goats.”

Now came a flood of tears. Women
can be so monothematic when it comes
to matters of home and hearth, you know.
I wanted to prevaricate, to say,
“Already, poor woman, do I have a wife,
as barren as a salt mine, to whom”
I seldom speak, and wish to keep it so.”

But no, Greek weddings are anathema
to me, and as for infants, I view
them as a pestilence, best kept indoors
until they attain the age of reason.

Yet Zenophila was no schemer.
Investigation was called for. Ah, here,
the bed was aslant, one leg knocked off.
The coverings were ripped to tatters,
and oil-stains were everywhere.
“What happened here last night?”

I asked the maid. “Was she alone,
or was there a gentleman caller?”
Her fingers made the number “three.”
“Three gentlemen callers? Last night?”

Searching, I found
     a little pewter amulet
     Antaeus and Hercules encarved,
the kind that young wrestlers wear.

Waving the amulet, I accused her:
“Three! Three from the wrestling school!
Three in your bed! Deny it!”

“They offered a demonstration,”
the girl protested. “Since women are not
permitted to see the matches, how else
could I expand my learning?”

                                                             I bit
my tongue and did not say, “Try reading.”
“So they showed you their moves.
First on the floor where sandal scuffs
are rampant, and then they moved on
to the mattress — o wide enough it was
for three, and then for four.” —

                                                     “One thing
just led to another,” she said, not blushing.

“That neither they nor you have shame,”
I calmly conjectured, “reveals the truth.”

“Hand me the infant!” —

                                    “Oh, do not harm it!”

The maid complied. Slowly, I pulled
apart the folds of tight swaddling,
enough to see, at shoulder’s base
the thing I expected to find.

“You pretty fool! You have upended
the universe with your dalliance.
All is made clear. Attend and listen.
Just yesterday, in gloom of dusk
three boys stayed late to test
each other with their new-learned art.
They piled on one another grappling,
when who should come along
but that flying Eros, known as Cupid
to some, and seeing them,
and having one last lust-engendering
arrow, he set it loose at them.

A single love-shaft struck all three.
One said, in a passing sigh,
          'O Zenophila, in your arms
          I would expire tonight'
and the amatory accord was made.
Three yearned as one, and for the same
eyes, lips, breasts and belly.

So at your door they came, in amity,
intent to share one bed with you,
and, triple-charmed, poor girl,
there was nothing you could do.

So there they tangled their oiled limbs
and you fell in with all that flesh a-snarl
the same as Laocoön’s sons
amid the serpents of the Hellespont.

The little monster followed them in.
You did not notice him hovering there.
He likes to watch, you know. Doubt me?
Then look and see.”

                                        I handed it her.
She peeked where I had parted
the tossed-off bedsheet wrapping.

“A wing! A feathered wing!” —

“None other than Eros himself,
Son of Aphrodite by who knows whom.
The little voyeur was hovering
when up and around him the sheet
went flying. With every move
he netted himself until at last
he lay there, immobilized.

“What a houseguest you have here!
Not one but two stepfathers has he.
One the god of war, stern Ares,
the other volcano-belching Hephaestus.
His grandmother is the whole wide sea,
but father he has none, and so is doomed
to be the begetter of random loving,
the favored sport of our kind.

“Somewhere inside that mess of cloth
are his little bow and a quiver,
most certainly empty now, whose arrows
turn rational men to madmen
and make fools of wise women.”

The maid now took me to task.
“Your knowledge of the gods,
great Meleager, befits a poet,
but is there not a marvel here?
What if this is some demigod,
newborn of a poet’s forethought,
new under the sun and moon,
a winged child, to bring his mother
honor and to enhance your fame?
Why not adopt the child?” —

                                                    “Yes, dear,”
pled Zenophila. “A wonder child.
Will he not add to your fame and fortune?”

“No to both of you. We must release him.
The wrath of Aphrodite is not to be borne.
Unless you set him free, no love
will come unbidden to anyone.
No suitor will plead, no girl or boy
will be patted expectantly, or sought
for trade for this or that, to surrender.
There will be no affection for fun.
Sexless will the whole city go
except for the bored and dutiful
husband-and-wife coupling.”

And so, I unbound the cloth
and up and out the monster went,
two wings and a bow and a quiver,
a flash of pink flesh into the glare
of sun and the birds sang out for joy.