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.'

Propertius carmen I - first draft translation

Cynthia caught me, the wretch, with her eyes,

Touched not at all before by amorousness.

Then he cast down my glance of steadfast scorn,

Love did, and my head crushed with hob-nailed feet,

Until he tutored me chaste maids to hate -

The reprobate! - and to live with no aim.

This spasm has not flagged for a year's length,

Though crossed by gods I'm forced to own as mine.


Milanion recalled, Tullus, that faint-heart never

Fair lady won, when he smashed flint Iaside's tantrum.

Maddened in just this way he staggered in Parthenian grottoes,

And he went on to survey hairy brutes.

He even, smitten with the Hylaean branch's hurt,

Squirming in agony, at Arcady's steeps moaned.

Thus could he housetrain the flighty lass:

So highly are prayers and mighty feats valued in love.


In me sluggard Love cannot think of such crafts,

Nor remember even the known ways he's trodden before.

But you, whose lie it is that you've led off the Moon,

And appease blasphemies by toiled incantations,

Drive and alter then the mind of mistress mine,

And outshine her complexion, that grows paler than I!

Then will I trust you, that both stars and tides

Cytinaean cantrips can command.


And you, who call up a man lately fallen, friends,

Seek remedies for a heart not in full health.

Hardily I'd take surgery or harsh cautery,

If thence might come licence to speak as my wrath wills.

Send me through outland tribes, and send me through waves,

Whither no women might learn of my pathway;

You stay, to whom the god attends and is kind,

And be always equals in a love secure.


In me our Venus lays on nights - bitter ones -

And Love is missing from no hour - unfulfilled.

From this curse, I warn you, fly: anyone should hoard

His affection, nor vary from love assured one jot.

Because he who gives ear to my urging, yet late,

Will - alas - carry back my wail with such sorrow.

The Flowers of Valentine

Wreathed to cure the plague maybe

In the Christian time

They hung about the nape of the cruel fresh


And might have been dishevelled by accident

When one of my forerunners caught a sepal

Wound in a hairy bounding sort of crown

And cried “But these are almost real”

To the ripping sound


The florist’s writing is less beautiful

Than hers who sent them who cannot see me,

Except by clear morningshine, like before;

But the florist just whacks them out, neatly,

Bluely neatly, some mauve flowers,

In frustratingly edible and swaddled boxes.


And so indeed the date came round and

Didn’t staunch the plague or kill

The victims who had extreme unction;

Didn’t profit by my will.


The debt and dirt in layers and occlusions, let it be sowed,

As the date rolls back, as they draw back, as I go back.


But the gift was sourced and the sauce was cooked

For the voluble gander as white goosey looked,

And the funny side was greased about,

Between the shipments and proctor’s doubt,

A trope delivered is a cliché bare,

Pleasant to study.


And how we could laugh, though they died with all

Else that ever died, and Saint Valentine,

The posthumous plague-saint, the pyrrhic faith healer.

The corse of a saint is inviolate,

But his relics can rot, and these stank, and we laughed.


Two good-byes later, which I just don’t do,

And non-conversations past, which I didn’t,

I’m so grateful. We laughed very hard.

Acquisition

Red Chinese garment bought at Unicorn

I cannot say we’ll bide another night,

Or that we won’t. I know you cool me down,

A poultice up against that wound of warmth.

I love your look and think you’re fond of mine,

Can revel at my shoulders and express

Pride enough to be certain in your ride.

But though you passed sufferance, you may go.


Red garment that I bought at Unicorn,

You should know that your outer side is handsome.

It is well woven and softly repaired.

Argolid eyed it hung; drawn out it is

A banner, sure enough. But I am keener

On the smooth red creamsheen layered within,


The ideal contact, child of Unicorn,

That intimate synthesis, a kinship, and a touch,

From the collective purchase, to you, worn

Unlessened by company. Skin and you.

If this is our last night, Unicorn-silk,

We will spend it together.


Red garment bought at ancient Unicorn,

There where things have been bought or not

Bought since Christ was a cadet

(Around 1910, in the Irish arm) – know you,

You are a stopgap, love. Behind my claim

Lies desire for an unseen jacket form,

That whores its blindside, jubilating black,

That bleeds and stains its redness where you shine.


And though you are a beauty, you can’t pull

A trick like that. Count on no powers

During these sympathetic red-gold hours.

Your feeling cannot plead your case,

When I’m pledged in another place,

Though for the night, you’re needed to the full.


(I kept you as it turned out-

rival's late)