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.

Diasporas

by Brett Rutherford

People scattered
in a human cyclone
fall to strange places,
explode like pine cones
in a bonfire, seeds
spattering, shoots
rising up, roots
and trunk and branches
the aftermath
    of disasters.

Greeks fleeing
too small land,
too little soil
cover the map
with colonies,
city-state the envy
of adjacent empires.
The gods they carried
became everyone’s
alternate family.

China so huge
it exports its people,
a centuries-long
diaspora of misery:
sent to dig
the guano fields
of far Peru, to sweat
for the promise of gold
as railroad coolees,
to roll cigars
in the damp heat in Cuba.

Scots fleeing hunger
    and the Enclosure laws,
Irish, from the whip
    and starvation,
scattered from Nova Scotia
to Tierra del Fuego.

British diaspora from slum
     and galley, to colonies,
branching to Canada,
bringing hot tea
     to burning Australia,
manners and order
     to the confounded
          Buddhist and Hindu.

Africans to everywhere,
     retreading the steps
         of evil slavers,
drums and Orishas
     slipped under the nose
of colonizers. Black river
in brown and white sands,
    object of fear, desire.

Jews driven hither,
     Jews driven yon,
absorbing, withholding,
    and moving on,
a demon myth following
a people of peace.

Romana, the destested
     people, detesting back
the unwelcoming nations,
    dark eyes in wagons
         rolling by.

The Russians, fleeing
     Lenin, Stalin,
and later monsters,
weeping, eat blini
in foreign capitals.
Each, in his heart
returns from exile.

The gay diaspora,
men living abroad,
abhorred by their own
parents and fellows,
some paid, in fact,
to stay away, society’s
“remittance men.”

Other migrations
are underway. Millions
flee the weather, the floods,
the failed crops, the rising sea.
So great this flow shall be
that nations shall be erased
and new ones formed.

The thing about diasporas
is that the place of exile
becomes enriched,
in fact becomes a new thing
upon the earth, amalgam.
There, nothing belongs
    to anyone by birth.
A culture is a cubbyhole
in a large treasure-chest,
its contents free for all.

Just take a breath
in New York City:
the smell of bagels baking,
the fish scent of
    Canal Street open market,
the spicy aroma of curry,
the corner taco stand.

The babel of welcome tongues,
strange and delicious,
on a free street declaiming
the art that was not allowed
back home. 

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!

 

An Interior Temple

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xii, 57

Praxiteles of old
     made delicate art
     in bronze and marble,
fooled men to believe
     a lifeless copy
     moved and breathed
in the confines
     of a captured moment.

Today’s Praxiteles, an
     almost-beardless youth,
has other powers. His hands
reach into my heart
and carve a figure there:
dread Eros, the rogue-brat!

This young one even
makes things inside my head,
already so clogged
with mazes and Minotaurs:
the latest, a many-chambered
temple where he alone
merits my worship.

As faint as fly-buzz
I hear the tiny hammers,
the dragging of stones,
as my interior temple
grows apace. Shall I

be better for this
acropolis complex
within my cerebellum?
Within my mind’s eye’s
eye, I spy an interior peristyle.
Am I permitted to kneel inside,
an ageless, robed
hierophant, hands
extended to one
who touches me back?

For be not fooled.
Its arms go up and down.
It even speaks.
(Beneath the god,
machineries below
give life to stone
and breath to lips.)

So dreaming, I worship
Praxiteles, and Eros obey.
Waking, I pass him by,
all eyes, and he pretends
he does not know me.

Oh, do not build and abandon
sky-palaces! Steal not the soul
in which proud columns rise.
Embrace, Praxiteles,
     this tortured dreamer!

Eros, my heart,
Praxiteles, my mind,
Priapus, down below.
I am a trinity. Pray
that my arms and legs
drawn hither and thither
do not fly off!

 

 

Of the Same Name

Praxiteles' Eros - Roman Copy

by Brett Rutherford

     After Meleager, The Greek Anthology,  xii, 56

How dare anyone so fair
have such a name as
     Praxiteles?
Should not the name
have been forever retired
after the Athenian carved
from Parian marble the gods
themselves? He made an Eros,
of Aphrodite born, by hand
and eye the gods permitted to see
without the punishment
     of blindness. 

Now Eros torments us,
endows today’s Praxiteles,
an idling son of no one
in particular, a youth
   among us watched
as he grew perfect,
who now, at twenty,
despite his indolence
looks fit to scale Olympus. 

Or will this living
     statue proxy be,
dispensing love affairs with ease,
while god-born Eros attends
the needs of the distracted gods?

It might be a good arrangement.
When there is much tedium
in Heaven, the gods come down
to bother nymphs and shepherds,
to woo away our mistresses,
and abduct by night the lads we adore. 

When there is too much intercourse
with those above, the crops
grow unreliable. Mountains smoke.
The rival temples demand
expensive sacrifices.

And oh, the demigods
     the poor maidens bear
to the despair of mortal
     relatives! 

With two love-gods about,
one here, and one above,
Hera will be vanquished,
and old wives silenced.

From the son of Cronos down
to the lowest demigod,
all heads will turn;
all beds will be fair play.

And as above, so below,
each one in turn shall love
and be loved, till all
fall down exhausted,
and die of old age, smiling.

There will scarcely be time
for the begetting of children.

 

 

 

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!

 

 

Christmas Eve

by Brett Rutherford

After the cemetery walk

I went to the edge of town,

passing the sign that said

"Welcome to . . ."

There was a tree

beneath which nothing

but new underwear

awaited, last-minute

buy from Woolworth's.

My Mother and

the Evil One

would reel home

from the Moose Club

past midnight.

By noon the fights

and screaming

would overwhelm

the Merry Christmases.

I waited.

For a car, for a lean

and hawklike stranger,

the one who, it was said,

would carry you off.

I vowed this year

not even to enter

the tobacco-smelling

room with the tinsel-

tottering tree. So far

I had avoided it.

All I wanted

for Christmas

was my picture

on cartons of milk

beneath the headline

MISSING CHILD.

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!

 

His Own Epitaph

 by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, vii, 417

Gadara in Syria, more Greek
than Greece itself, sired me.
Hail, island of Tye, my nurse!
I, Meleager, Eucrates’ son,
made my own way in epigrams;
Graces brought me to Menippus,
whose satires inspired me. Say
if you will I am only a Syrian.
What of it? Stranger speaking
and reading Greek, are we not one?
Sprung from Chaos,
     one common tongue
unites us. Now I am old,
and with a shaking hand
these words inscribe. Age
found me; Death sneaks about. 

Speak a kind word for me,
won’t you? I’m of an age
to have the ear of Heaven,
should I accord to wish you well.

 

 

Four Torches

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, vii, 182

Brief was the marriage
of our cousin Clearista.
Lamp doused, she stood,
her maiden girdle
loosened, listening
for the steps of the bridegroom.

The four immodest torches
cornered the bridal bed
in the adjacent chamber.
She blushed to think of eyes,
divine or human, seeing
the promised pleasures.

Sounds came to her:
the epithalamium sung
by all his companions,
the raucous drum and horn
of Priapus, the flutes
to calm her nerves.

Someone approached.
     Two hands
made a great clap
like thunder. Clearista
fell down dead.

The cries and wails rose up.
Bridegroom and friends,
the attendant maids,
lamenting the pale dawn
that followed such
a wedding banquet.

Around the rich
and canopied frame,
the four torches flamed.
Clearista’s bed
was now her bier. 

Dread Hades, attend:
Here comes the bride.

Heard Walking Past A Doorway in Ephesus

by Brett Rutherford

     after Meleager, The Greek Anthology, vii, 79 

“So then, you have read my book.
That’s nice to know, but why
come here with all these questions?
Look here, I need not explain
to blockheads what I mean
when I say a simple thing.” — 

                                            “But who
are you to be taken a priori?” —

“I wrote the thing.
Heraclitus I am. I point
the finger at change and Chaos.
What would you have me prove?
Ask not the name of my teacher.
I worked on wisdom alone,
    and no god helped. 

“My mind and thought were found
sufficient to serve
     my countrymen. Such words
that came almost unbidden
from brow to lip were harsh.” —

“Too harsh, some say —”

“I even upbraided my sire,
    an evil man he was.” —

“But a father should be honored.
He brought you up, after all.” —

“Get lost. The young, knowing
     no better, obey. When reason
comes, the son perceives
     a toad for what it is.
I spat as I crossed
that threshold one last time.
May their hearth be extinguished!” — 

“Such talk offends the gods.” —

“And so they punish me with fools,
and long life in a Persian rat-trap.
Worse shall you hear, stranger,
if you keep pestering.” — 

“Good-bye, then, grump.
I came with a letter, and gold.
I shall seek another tutor.”— 

“A tutor, eh? Fine jest
it was, to send you to me.
If you wish to be wise,
then stay away from me,
or, better yet, Ephesus flee!”

 

 

Anti-Eros

 by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted and expanded from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, v, 179

Eros, if I lay hands on you,
     you’re done for.
At the next sign
     of your sneaky arrival
I’ll grab the bow, that
    fancy Scythian quiver
and the whole lot
     of those vicious arrows,
and burn them up,

bow and string, the cloth,
the fletching feathers, all
into my hearth-fire,
up in smoke. See how
you like it then, powerless
except by persuasion
to make us men run about
like ants or termites.

How can I write
serious poetry
when all I can think about
is the pursuit, the conquest,
the jealous rage, and then
the renunciation, as if

you were not the god at all
of loving, but of falling
out of love. Anti-Eros
you are, diverting us
from our best instinct:
first love, best love.

Ah, there you are! See
how I have thieved you
of your quiver? Aim not
your bow like a club
at my forehead and listen
for once, ridiculous son
of Aphrodite!

“I attend,” the little god said.

“This is madness!” I charged.
“First this one, then that one,
and then another.
Heliodora, on and off,
then Zenophila,
and then some random boy
whose eyes flash
mischievously.” —

“What is it you want,
Meleager? To love them all?
Monday. Wesnesday, Friday
Heliodora’s lot —
Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday
with Zenophila —
and Saturday for boys,
as many as you wish,
     like candy?”

Oh, I had not thought of that.
“That would be terrible,”
     protested I.
“I’d waste away. My legs
would shrink to spindles.
And imagine the jealousy:
each one to do as she pleases
four days a week! Imagine
the whole city rocked by quakes
if they should ever meet in public!”

At this, a boyish laugh erupted
and the god snickered. “Beware
to get what you wish for! Give back!”

I handed him the quiver.

                                        “Well,
I demanded. What is it now?
Shall I just bare my chest
and take the shaft you came
to torment me with? Your
visits are frequent, as though
we were cousins, as though
you thought you were doing me
a favor. With me you are a lynx
pacing around a flock of sheep.” —

At this the boy leaned up, and,
taking my head in his hands,
planted a chaste kiss upon my brow.

“Would you refuse your next
adventure in love? You are not
supposed to see me coming!”

I closed my eyes. I did not
feel the sting, but heard
the air give way before
the approaching arrow.
The light winged sandals,

the wings outspread
framed the dawn light
window, and he was gone.

I am afraid to go out.
What if the next creature I see
is the one I must love?

But then I smiled,
for today is Saturday.