[This is the fourth poem I have posted that forms part, along with The River Biss https://oudeis2005.wordpress.com/2016/01/13/the-river-biss/ , Ode to Thread https://oudeis2005.wordpress.com/2016/01/07/ode-to-thread/ , and Hymn to the Moon https://oudeis2005.wordpress.com/2016/01/08/hymn-to-the-moon/ , of my ongoing free ‘translation’ of Catullus Poem 64. It fits well with this week’s Poetry Rehab prompt https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/31982590/posts/1035383680
Note that, although these pieces are free-standing sections in the longer poem, the titles are solely for the purposes of posting on this blog.]
The Rope
Clotho binds the threads; Lachesis pays it out;
Atropos sells it on to the handyman, builder, soldier,
cowboy, sailor, slaver, torturer, executioner
with her winning sales exec smiles and seductive ways…
& the various types of fella are roped in
and pegged out like dirty laundry
hung out to dry on a washing line:
joker, wheeler-dealer, ladies’ man, the silent type; Jack the ripper
Jack the lad, diamond geezer, Johnny lunch bucket, family man;
incorrigible bachelor, perfect gent; head-butting nutter, upper class twit;
harmless drunk, helpless nerd, boy band reject, dumb jock, seven-stone-weakling, nervous wreck
salt of the earth; wife batterer, drug addled waif; self-lover, self-loather alike,
every neighbor who mows his lawn in shirt sleeves every sunny Sunday afternoon….
Give ‘em all enough rope
& sure as eggs is eggs
Sure as night follows day
Sure as hell, in the end,
the scissors or the dump or the drying out clinic
will find them out and reel them back in again.
The Fates have a single eye between them
that you can borrow when you watch TV
through which you see their work in rosy light
and feel assured that all is right.
.
Poetry, Politics & Language 