The judgement of Paris

(The first part and a half of the next one written ages ago. The rest recent.)

1

Oenone’s lyre is northern and stained;

And shunned by all others of Ida’s nymphs.

Picture eleven knots’ silent disdain!

If they could, those roots would be drinking Parnassus;

But moves are not done now. If Pan propositioned

Some Idan fair, she’d accept his slather and cling.

The reeds sink into bog, there is ever less peat

And the nymph-pines fear prices.


The human palette looks for wrongness. So

Midas could not flatter Apollo; what

Did that deserve? Harsh glory lies with taste

And makes strange bastards roll about with men.


I don’t walk in hills by choice, and in mountains

I don’t walk at all. Three hundred feet and rainfall

Is good enough for wishing-wells.

Bring me a well and that grating sound

That calls out agility! Then I shall run,

I shall skip, I will gall the Spanish goats.


He whom the Gods favour is wrong.


2

No one ever remembers to shoot the messenger now.

This is a shame, as the fault often lies with the messenger.

If he’s first on the scene, suspicions may not be misplaced;

And if he is not, he is late.


He was cold and he was male, he believed in reason’s sway;

His voice could play in barrios and echo night and day;

The kind I hate on sight, that makes my craw recoil

Because I see efficiency to ravage and despoil.


His tune made a triad of beauts want to dance

And me want to sort out the sheep from goats.

Stay boyo he said, there’s work to be done

I know you don’t know about hand’s turns

But, mate, you soon will. Take a look.

Plug your eye in, we need it in heaven.


He whom the Gods utilise is strong.


3

Statistically this one – just lovely is

N’t she, all the numbers are going

For her. The magazines like her?

The magazines are her! They worship

With votive speculation her each hair.


Enough, I thought, of you, crass errand boy.

For all that he’s been bribed elsewhere I know,

And that “statistically” does her no gloire.

Gloire she should have, gloire she could doubtless make.


Stick to the subject. Auburn was this queen,

Red, you would say, but that you meant no harm

And feared to touch too near a regal spleen.

Yes, what a look! But that’s what you expect.


I didn’t like listening to what she extended,

Power I’d drop or money I’d burn.

Remember how Juno’s pin-up Jason ended,

Medea then mast. Remember or learn.


Not that I’d question the cloudy king’s taste.


4

They’ll make her, number two, proffer abstract truth

The occultist wisdom, some rational sway.

She had to suborn me, but she did more

In tangibility’s way.


Baby, if you want wisdom, she sighed,

Think about what you have. Do reflect

On your plush Idan bower

Nymph Oenone’s dower

The grey homeland eyes that deflect

Any buffets and shadows. I cried.


God the other two cats didn’t relish my tears,

In each of my eyes a bust they rubbed,

They squeezed my hands, under a divine guise

That I might be squeezing theirs.


She just said think about her – and wasn’t it

Her lyre, that got you where you are?

What if the prince your brother deems her only

Workaday? She made you work as hard

As you now play; and while you lie beside her

That dart can never come. Come what may, think.


5

And so I thought, as number three twirled,

And gripped me and commenced my purification

At her domain’s first shrine – and I kept on thinking,

When she shed her last pretences and fell down

And spewed out tableaux – Helen, she, and I,

And Clytemnestra to be factored in,

And craned over my neck again and clutched

And felt that apple I kept always close,

And began to adminster –


I thought, and decided, and took the tongue

Coiled, from my throat, and gave it to Minerva,

Duessa.


I thought, and saw, and knew, and called for Oenone,

As for a mother. But leaning on the brawn

Of the neglected messenger, she went.


Oenone, now I’ve lost my tongue for you

Thank Heaven that I have your lyre’s use -

It’s a quiet span and lonely and still very long,

At Ida’s slope, sorting the goats from sheep.