Poems Read online

  We explored every embrace, those kisses

  refusing to fade on my lips.

  We talked and talked with the lamp pulled close,

  but what a tussle when the light was dimmed!

  At times she bared her breasts to grapple with me,

  then hid them behind her night-shirt to slow down.

  It spoils the fun to cuddle in the dark.

  Eyes are love-leaders, as I think you know.

  Paris, they say, was entranced seeing Helen

  naked, when she slipped from her husband’s room.

  Naked, Endymion captivated the moon goddess,

  naked slept with her, the story goes.

  But if you insist on going to bed in clothes,

  your dress might just get torn by my rough hand.

  I might just get carried away and leave

  bruises on your arms to show your mother!

  Boobs sloping earthward need not spoil the game:

  no call for post partum embarrassment.

  Life’s short, let’s glut our eyes with love:

  a long night’s coming for you, with no dawn.

  If only you would want us chained so tightly

  no day could ever part us,

  doves in the bond of passion,

  male and female, total union.

  He’s wrong who seeks a limit to love’s madness.

  Real love can know no bounds:

  farmers will sooner sow one crop and reap

  another, the sun drive horses of darkness,

  and rivers suck their waters back to their sources,

  the fish stranded on the dried-out beds,

  than I will take my fires elsewhere:

  I’ll be one woman’s in life, in death also.

  If sometimes she will give me nights like these,

  a year will be eternity.

  Let everybody lead a life like mine,

  stretching out their limbs with copious wine –

  then there would be no cruel steel or warships,

  the sea of Actium would not churn our bones,

  and Rome would not so often dress in mourning

  to wearily mark its self-imposed defeats.

  Generations to come will praise me, justly –

  no gods were offended by our carousing.

  While the light holds, don’t spurn life’s fruit, my darling:

  all the kisses you can give me will be too few,

  and as the petals fall from withering

  garlands and you see them float in bowls,

  so today we breathe love to the full,

  but tomorrow may be our day of reckoning.

  II.16a

  The governor’s home from the Balkans, Cynthia –

  huge pickings for you, huge concern for me.

  Couldn’t he have drowned on the reefs of Albania?

  Neptune, what gifts I would have showered you with!

  As it is (in my absence) the tables will groan at the parties;

  as it is (in my absence) the door will stand wide all night long.

  If you’ll take my advice, reap the harvest you’re offered,

  shear the dumb sheep with the long, silky fleece.

  Then when his gifts are all gone and he’s out of cash,

  tell him to find a ship back to some other province.

  But, Venus, do me a favour to ease my troubles:

  just let him break his balls with his constant screwing.

  II.16b

  Anyone can buy her love with presents, then.

  Lord, the girl goes down for a shameful price!

  Cynthia has no interest in titles or medals:

  size matters for her in lovers (pocket size).

  She’s always sending me overseas for jewels,

  to bring her gifts from Tyre itself.

  I wish there were no rich men in Rome

  and even The Leader lived in a thatched cottage.

  Girlfriends could never be purchased then for goods,

  they’d simply grow old in the houses they were born in.

  Never then would you sleep seven nights away from me,

  your pretty arms round some repellent man;

  a slave sans loin-cloth goes through his paces at market,

  then is suddenly rich and the master of my kingdom –

  not for anything I’ve done wrong (I swear) but because

  beauty commonly comes with inconstancy.

  Will no outrage of yours ever make me cut my losses?

  Must it be the same cycle – you misbehave and I hurt?

  For days now I have felt no interest in

  the theatre or gym. Even poetry’s no help.

  I should be ashamed of course, unless, as they say,

  a worthless love is deaf …

  Remember the leader who filled Actium Bay

  with sound and fury (and with his doomed servicemen):

  his sordid love made him turn his ships around

  and flee to the furthest corner of the globe.

  Whatever clothes, whatever emeralds

  or topazes flashing yellow he’s given you,

  let me see the storm winds carry them into space,

  leaving you just their elements – earth and water.

  Presents! – Look what they brought Eriphyla,

  and the agony in which Creusa burned!

  Jupiter’s not always soft on perjured lovers

  or deaf to prayers for their comeuppance.

  You’ve seen the thunder roll around the sky,

  the lightning bolts leap down.

  It’s not the Pleiades, not Orion doing it,

  the lightning’s anger isn’t over nothing.

  He’s usually punishing unfaithful girls,

  the god who himself has been deceived and wept.

  Don’t covet a dress from Sidon so much that

  you panic whenever the south wind whips up clouds.

  II.17

  To welsh on a promised night,

  to lead on your lover, is

  to stain your hands with his blood.

  I am the bard of these things:

  many loveless nights

  spent on my own, broken

  by our beds’ separation.

  Pity Tantalus at

  the river, the water cheating

  his thirst, parching his mouth.

  Watch Sisyphus rolling

  the elusive boulder uphill.

  But nothing is worse on

  this earth than the lover’s life,

  nobody you’d less wish

  to be if you had any sense.

  I, whose good fortune once

  brought tears to the goddess Envy,

  now enter my girl’s house

  barely one day in ten.

  No more cuddles at

  the crossroads au clair de la lune,

  or sliding billets doux

  under her door. So be it.

  I’m not changing my beloved.

  She’ll be sorry when she sees my loyalty.

  II.18

  Endless complaining alienates many people:

  women often fall for the silent type.

  If you saw something, always deny you saw it;

  if something really hurt, shrug it off.

  Suppose the years were turning my hair white,

  creeping wrinkles furrowing my cheeks?

  Dawn did not despise Tithonus when he aged

  or let him lie alone in their eastern home.

  She chided the gods when she climbed into her chariot

  and did her job reluctantly for Earth.

  When she came home she often gave him a warm bath

  even before she’d scrubbed down her unharnessed horses.

  She embraced him going to bed over there near India,

  and lamented that daytime was coming round too soon.

  Her joy in Tithonus as he grew elderly

  was greater than her grief at the loss of Memnon.

  T
hat girl was not embarrassed to sleep with an old man

  and smother his white hair with kisses.

  I’m still a young man, yet you’re so disloyal you hate me,

  though you’ll be a bent old woman yourself before long.

  II.19

  I’m sorry, Cynthia, you’re deserting Rome,

  but I’m relieved you’ll be alone in the country.

  No young Don Juans prowl the virtuous fields

  to try your virtue with their artistry;

  no brawls will break out beneath your windows,

  no one disrupt your sleep, calling your name.

  You’ll be on your own, Cynthia, with mountains to look at,

  sheep, and the peasants’ fields. There’ll be no shows

  to fray your moral fibre, no temples (it is there

  you often start to misbehave). You can watch

  the oxen plough up and down, the vine-shoots

  pruned with slender sickles. You’ll burn incense

  as a young goat is slaughtered at a rustic altar.

  And with your dress hitched up you’ll dance;

  but safe from intruders, safe from the male kind.

  For my part, I’ll go hunting, take a break

  from Venus, observe the rites of Diana instead.

  I’ll get the baying hounds on the move, I’ll slay

  wild creatures, hang their antlers on the pines;

  I’m not quite ready, yet, for great big lions

  or grappling hand-to-hand with wild boar:

  I might be brave enough to bag a furry hare

  or two, snare birds with quicklimed twigs,

  where Clitunno streams through the shade

  of an elegant grove, its waters washing cattle

  snowy. Any fun and games, sweetheart,

  from you, remember, I’ll be coming

  to get you in a few days. The lonely woods,

  the streams meandering down mossy ridges won’t

  stop me worrying that your name

  might come to me on someone else’s tongue –

  taking advantage of an absent lover?

  II.20

  From the way you cry,

  one would think you were worse off than abducted Briseis,

  more desperate than captured Andromache;

  bothering the gods ranting about my ‘deceit’

  and whining that all my promises ‘ended like this’.

  You outdo the mourning dove in the leaves of Athens;

  even Niobe, whose boasting slew her twelve progeny,

  didn’t weep such waterfalls from the mountain.

  They can tie me down with bronze fetters,

  lock you up in the dungeon of Danae –

  I’ll break those chains to reach you, darling,

  burst into that steel-plated chamber.

  Any rumours that reach me about you fall on deaf ears:

  so don’t you be in any doubt about my seriousness.

  I swear by the memory of my mother and father

  (may their ashes crush me if I lie)

  that I will stay yours till that last nightfall:

  one commitment, one day that will take us both.

  If it weren’t your name or your beauty that kept me constant,

  it would be the easy terms of serving you.

  Six moons have waxed and waned

  since we became the talk of each street corner –

  and still your door swings open on its hinges,

  still there’s the cornucopia of your bed.

  Not a single night have I bought with lavish gifts:

  for everything I thank your generous soul.

  Many wanted you, but you single-mindedly

  chose me: how could I now forget your love?

  If I did, then harry me, Furies of tragedy;

  condemn me, Aeacus, in the judgement of hell;

  let me lie amid Tityus’ flock of vultures,

  push rocks uphill like Sisyphus …

  No need to bombard me, then, with plaintive letters:

  my faith will be to the end what it was on day one.

  II.21

  May Venus curse Panthus on a scale that matches

  the enormity of the lies he’s spread about me!

  I’m a better prophet, it seems, than Dodona’s oracle:

  that pretty-boy lover of yours has acquired a wife, sweetheart.

  All those nights of passion wasted. Galling, isn’t it?

  He’s whistling, shot of you. You were too credulous.

  Now you’re alone in bed.

  The happy couple will be talking about you; the arrogant

  bastard will say you used to gate-crash his home.

  Let’s face it: the only value you have for him

  is a notch on his bedpost, a trophy of bachelor days.

  He deceived you as Jason did his Colchian hostess:

  she was kicked out as soon as Creusa grabbed him.

  He gave you the slip as Ulysses did Calypso:

  all she saw was her lover spreading sail.

  Some girls are just too inclined to take things at face-value;

  they should learn when abandoned – kindness can be misplaced.

  What now? For some time you’ve been hunting another man.

  Once bitten, best to be shy, you idiot:

  meanwhile, any time, any place, I’m going to be

  available, ‘in sickness and in health’.

  II.22a

  Recently I’ve fancied many girls equally,

  as you know, Demophoon; and, as you also know,

  big trouble results.

  There’s no street corner I pass without consequences,

  while the theatre was clearly invented for my ruin.

  A lady spreading her pretty arms on stage

  with a sultry look, perhaps, or singing an aria.

  My eyes actively look for irritations:

  a blonde in the audience with revealing cleavage,

  stray hair wandering down a smooth forehead,

  a jewel in the middle, Indian-style …

  And why, you ask, Demophoon, am I so very

  susceptible to them all?

  There is no ‘why’ in love’s vocabulary.

  Why do people cut their arms with knives

  in religious dances to some Phrygian tune?

  We all get from nature some vice when our lives begin:

  mine happens to be constantly falling in love.

  Even if I suffer the fate of Thamyras the singer,

  I’ll never be blind, jealous friend, to gorgeous women.

  II.22b

  Sometimes the sun, sometimes the moon lights the sky,

  you’ll have noticed.

  Ditto with me: one girlfriend is one too few.

  Girl B can fondle me with eager arms

  if Girl A decides she can’t fit me in;

  if one gets cross with one of my messages,

  she should be aware there’s another who wants to say yes.

  Two’s such a good number: two cables secure a ship,

  a mother’s less anxious with twins than an only child.

  If you think all this is making me thin and wasted,

  you’re wrong: the worship of Venus is labour-saving.

  Just ask around: many girls know from experience

  mine is an all-night service.

  For Alcmena’s benefit, Jupiter stopped in their tracks

  other heavenly bodies …

  The sky did without the boss for two nights running,

  but he wasn’t too tired to hurl a few thunderbolts afterwards.

  Love doesn’t deplete the energy it will need.

  When Achilles tore himself from Briseis’ embrace,

  were the Trojans less inclined to run from the Greeks?

  Conversely, when Hector rose from Andromache’s bed,

  did the Greek fleet have nothing to fear from combat?

  The Greeks stood to lose their ships, the Tro
jans their walls:

  I am Achilles in love, fierce Hector am I.

  II.23-24a

  I shunned the highway of the ignorant mob

  only to drink now from the public taps.

  What free man bribes some servant for the job

  of taking messages to his girlfriend’s steps?

  Or forever asks in what porticoes she’s

  walking now, in which park he should have sought her;

  carries out the labours of Hercules,

  only to have her ask what gift he’s bought her?

  To see the ugly mug of some foul guard,

  get caught and locked up in a squalid hut?

  For one night’s joy per year the work is hard!

  I can’t bear girls who keep their front doors shut.

  Give me the one whose charms are on display

  with coat thrown back – no fear of any goon.

  Her shabby shoes wear down the Sacred Way:

  come close, no waiting, she delivers soon!

  No likelihood she’ll wheedle to receive

  presents your father will complain about,

  or tell you: ‘Quick! It’s time for you to leave.

  My husband’s back in town today. Get out!’

  The flotsam of the Orontes and Euphrates

  for me, not raiding marriage beds. He’s free

  whose amorous taste extends to low-cost ladies;

  clandestine love puts paid to liberty.

  ‘How can you say that when your Cynthia met

  such fame and your book’s read in every place?’

  Those words should make me break out in cold sweat:

  gentlemen hide their love or risk disgrace.

  If Cynthia only showed herself more willing,

  I wouldn’t be the world’s most dissolute rake,

  or branded round this city as a villain;

  I’d burn without illusions for her sake.

  Don’t marvel if I favour girls-for-sale:

  they bring less scandal. Isn’t that good reason?

  She wants a fan from some proud peacock’s tail,