Catullus VIII

          Washington

"Even while you play the clown,
  sad Catullus,
you see whatís lost.  Now learn from it.

  Bright remembered
days, spent sniffing after my mistress;
  no one loved
as much as I loved her, cream,
  games, lust
given to her, who never loved me

  less -- Now she loves you
no longer, Catullus -- you limp, brooding clod:
  quit snivelling
after her, and let her flit away.  Brace yourself:
  you must not break.

And so, dear girl, bonne chance --
  Catullus is stiff,
though he wonít come uninvited.  As for you,
  youíll regret this,
looking out for company, looking out till dawn...
  how will you survive?
Thereís no one to call your love-name;
  Who will you kiss?
There are no lips to nibble

  while
Catullus, grim in resolve, stands here
  unbroken."
 
 
 
 

    Divorce and Mr. Circe

When, my quiet scientific friend,
      fattening your rabbits for the blood-tap,

             the smirking pig trotting toward its noose,
did you first think of grafting a new life

to your life? Because the body is hostile
      (you once explained) it must be tricked

            into welcoming the foreign substance
that can save it, the trickle of pig

you now slip inside a manís skull.  Call it
       immuno-suppression. Or call it

                a violation of self, when the spores
leech through the soft Parkinsonian

ganglia, so the spastic man
       tied twenty years to a chair by

             his frantic wife, can now smack
a nine-iron and snort Watch her go....

To graft new life is to cut one away,
       to grow from withering --

             Whatever it is you put in a brain
has first come from yours:

What remains there today
      when dog will mew, and cat

            will have his day, when a man
quivering after years of

deliberation rises from his chair at last,
       closes with steady hand the door

             his wife holds
and walks away from his house?