The Glad Choice

Gladly I’d choose an oyster’s life

They pile up, the symphonies,

In scraps of starts and spiny bones,

They clog the musted guiltworn air

That drapes a late but scanty sleep.


We have to wind through hopes, a heap,

We have to fall upon a crease,

We have a circus track as well,

But it is broken and veers off

To heights or through the drains…


And do not overstate my gains,

Though I myself like so to do.

I’d take a solid increment. In

Truth, I’d take the oyster’s life.


This gift or stolen flame of thought – I could take it,

Given the choice, I’d leave it. Now I’ve got it

Its use is but a commentary on all I fear or cannot do.


Oh surely, if the third road grew

(The spirit’s twin of ninety-seven’s vow, say,

The elite’s liberty, the water-fairy’s rope)

Certainly all thinking beasts would bless their souls

Before abolishing them to reach for you,

That steeper oracle, that freer point…


The road is very sheer, sharp at its joint,

And the mild clime pools by the seas:

Give me the oyster’s solar suite.


The round of short dependent craving meat,

Immobile satisfaction – recall now

Those gaseous things both inert, and noble.

Some distant cultivated bursary

Installing one in the world’s oldest hall,

The shell…


Order, not obsessive ordering…well

I will take up that aeon-length fellowship

At All Shells’ College, The Sea!

The ocean shall gawp wide like one green eye

And I, my pearl – its mote, its speck, its sleep;

The bed shall pout below, poignant-glad lip

And I will cling and never think again.

Held Up

“What kept you?” she said with a waft of wound

Perfection in the creases and the air.

“Where have you been ever since you made over

Your frame and redly vowed to do me right?”

She was silent while she said this but I

Give her sentiments I used myself afterwards.

And I flicked out this answer from its case –

“Ever, ever so busy; a commission

To parody everyone else, then me;

My studies” – here I drew in breath –

“The world of politics” – her brow grew girdled –

“The theatre, the chorus and the lash

(Nelsonwise or demotic). Even now

I am obliged to frolic fast away.

I came here just to pick up my effects…”

“Leave now,” said the muse, “and I must leave you.”

Her voice – an excellent thing in woman – finely low,

I inattentive let it slide. I bolted.

The burbler's epigram

And I will strive for this the more -

To gain the thought, the notion of

Being impulsive, worn out, young

- To discharge debts and draw gazes.

Propertius carmen XVI first draft translation

'I, who was once thrown open for great triumphs,

Like unto the door of Tarpeia, noted for her virtue,

Past whose threshold there cantered the gold-inlaid chariots,

Who grew damp with the suppliant teardrops of captives,

Now I, rent in sot's nightly scuffles,

Beaten by ignoble knuckles, oft complain

And for me of rank wreaths danglings there is no shortage,

And always brands lying, a sign to those she's burnt out.


'Neither can I ward off milady's ill-famed nights,

My shapely structure pilloried in vile ditties;

But nor can she endeavour to reclaim her scant honour,

Living foully enough to shame this epoch of lust.

Penned between these truths I'm pinned to lead appeals,

A sadder barred suitor - long suppliant he.


'Never does he suffer my hinges to unwind,

Carolling verses as biting as charming:


'"Door, crueller at bottom than our lady herself,

Why to me are you dumb, granite-hard, slammed clam-tight?

Why never unlatched do you receive my amours,

Know you not how, moved, to answer discreet pleas?

Will there never be granted, to end my lament,

Anything, save begrimed slumber on lukewarm lime?

Me at the night's medians, me at the star's full girths, me lying,

The breeze frozen with chill Dawn grieves me, grieves for me,

You, solely, never downcast on human accounts,

Answer with your hinges' pact of silence.


'"O, if only my whimper, thrust through some covert cranny,

Striking on milady's earlobes might return!

Allow then for the chance that Sicily's rock's milder,

That she may be harder than iron, than worked steel,

She could not yet have power to avert darling eyes,

Her heart would lurch up in sighs and wrenched tears.


'"Now soft she lounges on some blessed foe's shoulder,

And my words drop into the nightly East Wind.

But you're the lone reason for my pains - greatest, anyway,

Never to be won, door, by my favours.

You I never harrassed with my tongue's spite,

Any speech which it's usual to tell perverse blocks,

That you might be indifferent to me, rasping, pleading,

Keeping up anxious watches in some back-alley.

Indeed, I've composed verses for you, in the latest style,

And, stooped down, I have lavished kisses on your worn steps,

Prized offerings I've brought you, veils over my hands!"


'Stuff like that, that you lovestruck wretches all seem to know,

He gasps out next unto the morning larks.

Thus I now, what with milady's faults, and the lover ever

In floods of tears, well, eternal upset is my fate.'