Emil Pitkin

The stream of the golden hued honey poured forth from the bottle
So viscously, slowly, the housewife had time to remark:
– Here, in joyless Crimea, where we have been set down by fate,
We don’t miss what’s behind us, – and over her shoulder she glanced.

Dionysian rites everywhere, as if watchmen and dogs
Were the world’s only creatures, – you walk, you don’t meet anyone.
Like a ponderous barrel, the days, placid, roll on and on.
Far away in the hut there are voices – you can’t grasp, you don’t answer.

We stepped out after teatime to walk in the great dark brown garden.
Over windows, like eyelashes, darkish curtains are lowered.
Past the many white columns we went to go look at the grapevines,
Where the glass, made of air, bathes and settles around sleeping mountains.

I observed: grapes live on in our day like an old, distant battle,
Where curly-haired horsemen fight headlong in lines curled and ordered;
In rocky Crimea – the art of Achaea, and here
Are the noble and rust colored furrows of our golden acres.

Now, the silence stands still in the room that’s as white as a spindle,
You smell vinegar, paint and the fresh and young wine from the cellar.
Remember the old Grecian home, with everyone’s favorite wife –
Not Helen – the other one – how long her embroidering took?

Golden fleece, after all, where are you, after all, golden fleece?
The ponderous waves of the sea crashed and sounded all voyage.
Taking leave of his vessel, the seas having tired its canvas, 
Odysseus returned, when with time and expanse he was full.

Here it’s windy and the waves are interlacing.
Fall is coming, so our region will see changes.
I am more moved by these bursting colors, Postum,
than by changes in a girlfriend’s many outfits.

Virgins tease us up to predetermined limits –
there’s no ingress past the knee or elbow regions.
There’s more happiness from beauty that’s not carnal:
hot caresses are unlikely, nor betrayal!

***

I am shipping to you, Postum, many volumes.
How’s the city? Linens fluffy? Sleep unharried?
How’s our Caesar? What’s he up to? Always scheming?
Always scheming, yes, and gluttonously feasting.

In my garden where I sit, the lamp is shining.
There’s no girlfriend, nor a servant, nor acquaintance.
Here instead of this world’s pitiful and mighty –
the agreeable and buzzing insects’ humming.

***

Here’s interred an Asian merchant. As a merchant
He was savvy, all no-nonsense and discretion.
He died quickly, felled by fever. He once sailed here
Not for this – he’d come to ply some trading business.

Near him lies a legionnaire beneath rough quartzite.
He brought glory to the Empire in battle.
Could have fallen many times! He died a graybeard.
Even here the rules are nonexistent, Postum.

***

That a chicken’s not a bird I’ll grant you, Postum,
But with chicken brains you’ll have your share of sorrow.
If you’re fated to be born inside the Empire,
Best to live in distant provinces, and seaside.

Where it’s far away from Caesar and the hailstorms.
You don’t have to simper, tremble, or to hurry.
All the governors are crooks is what you’re saying?
Well I much prefer a crook to a blood sucker.

***

I’m prepared, hetaera, to wait out this downpour,
Here, together, just without negotiations:
To demand a sesterce from a swaddling body –
it’s like asking your own shelter for a shingle.

Did you say that I am leaky? Where’s the puddle?
I have never left a puddle – never ever.
Make my day and go and find yourself a husband,
And he’ll leak for you all over every blanket.

***

Here we are, and more than half is now behind us.
Like an ancient slave once told me by the tavern:
“Looking back over our shoulders we see ruins.”
Certifiably barbaric, but it’s truthful.

I’ve been in the mountains. Now I putter with a
Large bouquet of flowers. Let me find a jug, I’ll
Pour them water…How is Libya, dear Postum, –
Or wherever? Can it be that we’re still warring?

***

Our old governor’s young sis, remember, Postum?
Rather spare in form, but thick in leg and buttocks.
You have bedded her…she’s just become a priestess,
Priestess, Postum, who holds council with immortals.

Come and visit, we’ll have wine to go with bread rolls.
Maybe plums. You’ll tell me everything that’s happened.
Clear night sky, I’ll lay blankets in the garden,
and I’ll teach you what we call the constellations.

***

Shortly, Postum, will your friend who loves addition
Pay his long outstanding debt unto subtraction.
Take my savings out from underneath my pillow,
it’s not much but for a funeral you’ll manage.

To the home of the hetaeras ride your beauty
Where they live under the walls of the old city.
Pay the rate for which they used to do their loving,
so they’ll weep and mourn at rates that they are used to.

***

Here the laurel is so green it aches and shivers.
And the door is swung wide open, dusty windows,
Here’s a chair abandoned, bed that has no owner.
Noontime sunlight that has soaked a scrap of fabric.

Sounds of Pontus through the palisade of pine trees.
By the cape the wind is battling someone’s vessel.
On a cracked and brittle bench – the elder Pliny.
In the crown of cypress trees a thrush is chirping.