The Azaleas of Ningpo

by Brett Rutherford

Legendary and lethal,
the azaleas of Ningpo
cover the hillside, a blaze
of color intoxication.

Goats roaming there,
chewing the blossoms
and leaves, fall down
into a stupor.

A black vase
topped with a burst
of red azaleas,
pink hearts
of rhododendrons:
a death-warning.

A medicine as like
to kill as cure,
used sparingly;

a tiger face
not seen amid
the shrubbery;

fox-fairy perfume,
the fatal allure
of a woman met
by the road-side;

the pain, in exile,
of thinking of home.

Beware the azalea!

** This poem cites several Chinese names for the azalea: "thinking of home," "goat-stupeying flower," and "tiger flower."

The Mirror of Lais

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Julianus, Prefect of Egypt, The Greek Anthology, vi, 18, 20.

Lais,
in this mirror looking,
saw only Aphrodite.
Dim light, bright light,
year in, year out,
sorrows and lines
avoided her. The face
reflected there
seemed immutable.

She captivated Greece;
no mean feat
to make men bow
who had broken Persia
and crushed its shields
beneath their horses.

Now, suddenly,
she sees a hag,
dry lips, eye bags,
and a furrowed field
of ugly wrinkles.
A wig, face-paint,

lip gloss, all fail.
Men see, and look away.

The mirror no more
a pretty liar, becomes
a detested object.
Wrapped in a scarf
she sends it off
as an offering,
inscribed:

"Cytherea, goddess,
Aphrodite, friend
of my undying youth,
receive this mirror,
a false round window
now. Refuse it not,
well-made and gilt.

Look now and then
upon your beauty, you
who have no dread
of Time, the destroyer."

The Mourner

by Brett Rutherford

     From Dioscorides, The Greek Anthology, v, 53

Dying, Adonis,
you did not see
the way the fair
Aristonoe
wept for thee.

If someone wailed
beside my bier,
and tore her breasts
just so, I too
would voyage down

to Hades dark
to be thus mourned.
And at my tomb,
forever sad,
ah, would it were she!

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.

Unlucky Number

by Brett Rutherford

Who would have thought
that the unluckiest digit
was the tiny number Two?

Pythagoras said One
was unity or god,
a thing impossible to break
into constituent parts,

whereas the dreaded
number Two spelled out
diversity and struggle,
disorder and strife,
the root of all evil.

The Romans,
respecting always
the wisest Greeks,
were in accord.

Hold up two fingers
or stop your count
of anything at Two,
was like an evil eye,
or spitting at heaven.

Romans began the year
with One, the month of Mars,
then shuddered, cold,
through all of Two,
the month of Pluto,
when every chill wind
seemed to issue from Hades.

On Day Two of Month Two,
the Manes, unquiet shades
of ancestors neither blessed
nor damned, the walkers
at the edge of Hades, blow

up on night winds to haunt
the Roman graveyards,
unearthing bone and urn,
knocking about the little
household gods on the hearth,
engendering migraines
and mis-shapen births.

Walk on that day,
two fingers up on left,
two fingers up on right,
avoiding monuments,
not saying the names
of the departed. Eat
sparingly and take no salt,

pass water in all four
directions, and fail not
to complete each sentence
once begun, lest you lose
your tongue altogether.

At sunset, chant, Dis Manibus,
Dis Manibus, and pray
that no unquiet ghost answers.

Until the next day's dawning,
sleep not as two
entwined with wife or lover:

On the night of the Manes
each one must sleep alone
just as the dead ashes sleep
in their gloomy vaults below.

Go to Elysium

by Brett Rutherford

Good folks,
god-loving
(or so they tell themselves)
get a free pass
beyond the Styx,
and to Elysium go,

the Blessed Isles,
or one big isle
depending upon
which poet you believe.

There Rhadamanthus,
gives those surviving souls
who made no trouble
for others, or died rich
with suitable gifts
for the temple, haven.

What Rhadamanthus
provides, is more
of everything mortals
most wanted. Endless
sports, and concerts live
where they sway to and fro
to the beat of drums,
the thwack of guitars

electrified. Horses,
dogs, cigars, and whiskey
abound, forests of deer
and guns to shoot them with,
strip joints, pole-dancing
virgins, a big casino
for the high rollers.

Mob boss and pimp,
gun-dealing casino owner,
glad-handing, wink
and a nod to whatever
comes, Rhadamanthus
knows where his bread
is buttered, Elysium
the number one destination
for departed souls.

Once they get over
the nonexistence
of their deities,
all settle in. The games,
a season ticket,
an all-star cast
at the stadium.
Who can complain?

But as for me,
I book my fare
on the slow boat
to Hades. My cat,
a creature of great
discernment, is there,
and shall adorn my lap.
I shall read out
one thousand poems,
calming the howl
of hell's eternal winds.

Things I Never Dreamt I'd Eat

by Brett Rutherford

Duck feet, sea slugs,
lotus root dry
     from winter mud,
eggs lost and found
inside a clay pot
     a "hundred years,"

baby eels, slimy
     (aphrodisiac?),
tree-bark fungus
afloat in soup,
shark fin, dried
     octopus snack,

Old Pock-Marked
     Mrs. Chen's
tofu (the scholar's
rocket fuel),

mysterious red
sausages, pork
belly, bok choy,
a stinky fruit
(durian) milkshake,
noodles transparent,
tentacular,

the act of faith
that no one you know
has, after a thousand cuts,
wound up inside
today’s pork bun —

all these I know,
but I draw the line at
stew of a black dog,
and jellyfish.

Two Scholars Atop A Cliff

by Brett Rutherford

Fu Bao Shi paints them:
two scholar friends
who seldom agree
on weighty matters,
friends now
and forever regardless.

One faces the painter.
Perhaps he is glad
to be seen there
facing another cliff
we can only imagine.

The other looks off
into the spiky peaks
whose forested slopes
play hide and seek
in perpetual fog.

Posed at right angles,
neither scholar sees
the same reality;
neither can know
how Fu sees them
seeing. Fu cannot see
what either scholar
perceives.

 
Black ink,
brown washes.
One nature,
many mountains.
Each man alone
in a universe
of seeing.

Dreams of Down Below

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xvi, 213

I am looking forward
to the Underworld,
     really, I am.
Despite dim light,
cold drafts, and food
at best repulsive
(mushroom fare!),
love’s bitter arrows
go not there.

A good night’s sleep
is almost assured
without those torments
of futile yearning
after this one, that one.

Comparing notes,
     the lovers, great and small,
     will offer their hands
     in condolence. Poor
poet, what do I have
to boast of?

But what of those
     who have gone before,
     seething with jealousy,
     remembering bad nights
     and broken trysts?
Lovers, a cynic told me,
are housed on separate isles
from the dead objects
of their past pursuit.
A waving hand across
    ice floes in Acheron
are all one can hope for.

But is that so awful?
If death is just
    old age extended,
one could,
     despite the shivers,
read all the poets,
dispute, if able,
with the philosophers
who stumble about
saying, “Does this exist?”
“Do I, a shade, exist?”

Musing on this, I dreamt
of a scholar’s afterlife,
surcease of sex and sorrow.
But then came Demeter
in her proud chariot.
“I come for my daughter,”
she told me. “Each year
on the appointed day
I take her home to Mt, Ida,
and oh, the flowers!”

I stood dumbstruck.
My idle dreams of peace
were shattered, as
the pale figure passed me
and red-eyed Hades
howled “Persephone!”
with all the agony
of a bereft bridegroom.

If that dark god
to whom all come
quakes pillars of Hell
for the one he cannot
possess, then truly,
as above, so below.
The lord of the dead,
and all the dead,
are Love’s prisoners!

 

Bringing Bad News to Niobe

In classic Greek tragedy, violent acts always occur offstage, and actors or the chorus must relate to those on stage, and to the audience, what has happened out of sight. Meleager’s longest poem seems to be a demonstration of such a speech, in an imaginary drama about the fate of Queen Niobe and her family, all of whom are killed by Apollo and Artemis after she insults Leto (Latin, Latona), their mother. Boasting of her 14 children, Niobe calls the mother of Apollo and Artemis “nearly childless.” Ovid tells the gruesome story of all the sons and daughters felled by arrow shot from the sky in his Metamorphoses. Meleager would be engaged, it seems, in coming up with the worst news ever brought by a single messenger. He assumes that the Queen is in her palace, and that one poor soul has to narrate everything – and then, even in the midst of his speech, more horrors pile on. This tour de force, packed into the fewest possible lines, prompted me to expand the text, and to cast my version in blank verse so that it sounds like a speech from an English drama.

BRINGING BAD NEWS TO NIOBE

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xvi, 134

Daughter of Tantalus, O Queen of Thebes,
never was a messenger so charged with woe.
From your stern gaze, Niobe, I avert
my head; on bowed knees, trembling, I falter.
Can I say all that must be said to you
without a blinding dart or lightning bolt
reducing me to ash? O Queen, rend now
your robes to rags, hurl down the diadem
and howl as never a mother before!

Your sons are dead! What? All of them, yes all!
That glance! Would I were mad as you think me.
Come to the balcony and see it all,
what Thebes in horror witnessed in bright sun:
the arrows plunging down, one angry god
and his equally angry sister, hot
to avenge their mother’s honor, drew bows
from yon low-hanging cloud. What gods, you ask?
I cannot say it above a whisper —
Apollo and Artemis, none other.

Come quickly, then. Your daughters already
flood the field with cries. The horrified crowd
parts way for them. O lady, come not here —
hold back — oh, smiting gods — the girls as well!
They knelt in lakes of blood, and now they fall.

O Queen, where have you gone? Is it the King
you have gone to grieve with? I saved that bit
for later. Upon the sword he fell, seven sons
bereft. Now, what is that below? The Queen
amid the carnage, arms up imploring
the fatal heavens. One daughter leans hard
upon her bosom, another at her feet
expires. Some, praying to Leto, clasp hands
in fervent begging. No use! The feathered
shafts continue falling, seven sons dead
and seven daughters. O find me a sword
that I may fall upon it. O History,
will thy Muse permit the telling of this?
Must I live on to be the one who writes
on bloody parchment this dark tale of woe?

All witness on the red ground below, yet
who can compass both the effect and cause?
What plagues and sorrows will come after this?
And as for Niobe, still as a stone,
what will this hard retribution teach her?
Speak, Queen! Your mouth is open, but no cry
comes forth. Gods! What do my eyes behold now?

She is a stone. Crown gone, disheveled her
golden hair, hands out before her visage,
fingers spread fanlike as if to block out
the gaping wounds, the heart-blood spurting still
from where the unerring arrows chest-plates
pierced, skulls riven in two, dead eyes agape,
as fourteen new souls sleet down to Hades.

Frozen she is, tongue, lips and teeth, wild eyes,
torrent of torn robes and unloos’d sandals,
all to marble transformed, except one tear,
that, seeping up from a mineral spring,
flows rivulets upon the mother’s face,
and in renewing itself, becomes a font.

Weep, Niobe! I shall repeat your tale
to any Muse who wishes to listen.
I shake. I wield no stylus and no lyre.
If Gods do this to us, what hope is there
that brutish men will rise above the beasts?

 

 

 

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!”

 

In A Name

 by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xii, 81

What parent would name
his child in such a manner? —
Look, here comes Dionysus!
To be the butt of jokes,
provocative glances, drunken
jibes, and dangerous
assumptions is bad enough —
no blame to the young man
if he also possesses beauty,
eyelashes as fatal
    as the net to the fish.

Love-sick with self-deceit,
imagining souls bound
by a night of passion,
fellow victims, assist me!
You know the bitter-honey
     taste of rejection.
Pluck out my heart —
plunge it in cold water,
or, better yet, into
the colder jolt of a snow-bank

save me, for I have dared
    to look on Dionysus.
A river plunge, a waterfall,
    an iceberg ride
in Ultima Thule, anything!

You, laughing, passive witness
of youth and beauty,
help me to stop
     Love’s venom.

O Dionysus, to sleep
    with you is bliss.
But to wake with you?
I fear my heart
cannot contain it.