Roman Holidays?

Or, CLASSICAL DOGGEREL (circa 1995)
     And "doggerel" means fairly bad poetry, or wannabe poetry, or something that looks a bit like poetry, but isn't quite.  I've written my share of sea-doggerel.  Here's a piece of classical doggerel from an old notebook . . . though at the bottom of the blog-entry, there's a chorus from a really cool dysfunctional would-be love-song: "Rome Fell."

NOR SWIMS*
     Neither reads
A fool the old
Roman gibe
But Caesar
Swam, wrote
Books, scrolls
Historical, political
Who knew
The Rubicon, the die
Once only, but cowards
Cleopatra loved
Egyptian grain
Against odds
King Nicomedes 
Too, but after
Laurels, bald
Truths too few
Posterity, can't
Plan for it:
Paine's idea,
Burke agreed.
Julius, wily
Julius: he
Flourished
For a while.

--I just found this doggerel in an old notebook from grad school, the notebook itself entitled "Dioscuri" and dated "1995."  I've lightly edited this piece, something that had grown out of my reading in Julius Caesar, of course, but Byron too--however unnamed--as well as Shakespeare, Talbot Mundy, English Romantic era political theory, and Roman history.  Barton's Sorrows of the Ancient Romans is probably the source of the Roman proverb, the Roman definition of a fool*--He neither reads nor swims--which I've presented previously here.

About that time I also wrote a song called "Rome Fell," but I can't quite recall nor find those old lyrics.
I can sing the chorus for you:

ROME FELL
Like I fell for you
ROME FELL
You can walk through the ruins
ROME FELL
Empires never last
ROME FELL
Who cares about the past?

(REPEAT!)

(REPEAT!)

Belly Music

Mermaid: sculpture mix; blue glazing; copper wire.

Archilochos: "The Ant Bites!"

"The good natured need no cutlery

in their vocabulary."

Really, Archilochos?  

Poet and warrior, mercenary, that you are?  

The Stinging Wasp--the Biting Ant--of the ancient Greek world?

Aren't you the man who said . . . 

"Listen to me cuss."

and, ferociously, gleefully, 

"Meet insolence with outrage."

Well, how about two of your more moderated reminders?

"The heart of mortal man,

Glaukos, son of Leptines,

Is what Zeus makes it,

Day after day,

And what the world makes it,

That passes before our eyes."

and

"A man, Aisimides, who listens

To what people say about him

Isn't ever going to be quiet of mind."

True, both true, but sometimes we do need the lash of wit, the sting of indignation:

"The arrogant

puke pride."

"You drink a lot of unmixed wine

That you haven't paid for,

And weren't invited to share, 

Treating everybody as your dearest friend,

Greed having supplanted any shame

You once had."

And, in the case of your back-stabbing prospective father-in-law, Archilochos, sometimes a full-scale curse is everything that's needed:

"May he lose his way on the cold sea

And swim to the heathen Salmydessos,

May the ungodly Thracians with their hair

Done up in a fright on the top of their heads

Grab him, that he know what it is to be alone

Without friend or family.  May he eat slave's bread!

And suffer the plague and freeze naked,

Laced about with the nasty trash of the sea.

May his teeth knock the top on the bottom

As he lies on his face, spitting brine,

At the edge of the cold sea, like a dog.

And all this it would be a privilege to watch,

Giving me great satisfaction as it would,

For he took back the word he gave in honor,

Over the salt and table at a friendly meal."

-Archilochos

from Guy Davenport's 7 Greeks,

A New Directions Book: New York, 1995.

My best Archilochos impression . . . .

Bolinas Surf Shop Booty

The best sea t-shirts around may be found down almost at the end of Wharf Road.
Cash only, so come prepared.

Kids sizes too.

Puck: Mask--Rough Draft

Rough draft of a Puckish mask:
sculpture mix; nutmeg glaze base with a deep blue/green glaze overlay (though the nutmeg base brought out more of the topcoat's green).

The straight edge of the glazing isn't what I'd prefer.

The brow markings are from rosemary sprigs, which seems appropriate.

I'll have to try again this summer.

Mask: Summer 2010?

Archilochos: Grains of Salt

Three Pieces from Archilochos, the ancient Greek poet, translated by Guy Davenport:

With ships so trim and narrow,

Ropes fast and sails full,

I ask of the gods that

Our comrades have a wind too,

That they meet neither tall wave

Nor reef.

                 All fortune be with them.

Let us hide the sea-king's gifts,

The wrecked dead Poseidon brings.

Their lives

Held in the arms

Of the waves.

--Archilochos

from Guy Davenport's 7 Greeks,

A New Directions Book: New York, 1995.

(I've posted shots of this sculpture in the past here.)

Jolly Roger

"House-pirate."

"House . . . pirate?  What's that?"

"Focused sublimation, I think."

"Aaaarrrgggghhhh.  Isn't there something easier?"

"We wouldn't want there to be any real trouble . . . ."