the scrappy classicist

Catullus, c. 1

Who’s a new exclusive pocket poet book

for, pages just cut clean with gritty pumice?

Cornelius, for you. For you were used to

think my scribbles to be something. Long since

was when you of the Ancestrals alone risked

setting out all of history in three scrolls,

genius stuff, my god, and full of industry.

This is the why. Keep this tiny makeshift of

a book such as it is for you which, o Muse

who watches out for me, may abide more than

one single generation, enduringly.

Catullus, c. 41

Ameana, bitch fucked up and down and out,

blackmails me for a whole ten thou sesterces,

your moll with the kind of gross-out nose, girlfriend

of a burns-holes-in-pockets Formiae man.

You people who keep the b. in care, round up

her friends and her doctors: The bitch is out of 

her mind and in the state she’s in she’s not in 

the routine of asking her bronze looking glass.

Catullus. c. 40

What kind of brain fry, poor devil Ravidus, 

dumps your head as an hors d’oeuvres for me to mock?

What godhead your bozo brain’s invoked, prepped for

raising one hell-raving row? Or how is it

you make it into the mouths of the many?

What’s it you’re after? You want celebrity,

however you get it? Yes it will be yours

seeing that you’ve been hankering for my squeeze.

It comes with a slow-release hurtfelt chaser.

Catullus. c. 39

Egnatius ’cause he’s got teeth breathtaking white

flashes his smile here, there, anywhere. If he comes

courtside for the accused when some orator guy’s

making them cry, flash! If they’re mourning a good son

pyreside when a sonless mother weeps for her one

and only, flash! he goes. Whatever, wherever’s

going on, whatever he’s up to, flash! he grins.

This sickness he has got and classy it is not

I submit; not debonair. What’s so is the why 

I’m forced to let you know, dear old Egnatius.

If you were debonair, a Sabine or a man

of Tibur or a fat cat Umbrian or fat

Etruscan or a swarthy Lanuvium man

with nice choppers or a Transpadane to touch on

my own kind or so-and-so who rinses his teeth

with clean water, still I would not want you to flash

your toothsomeness any which wherever. Because

there’s nothing you can do more crude than a crude jibe.

Now you’re a bear-Celt: In bear-Celt land, the pee

each person’s peed is part of the morning routine

of rubbing down teeth and ruddy gums. So! the more

you and your ilk have pearlier whites, that’s how much

more you sport the telltale badge of the piss drinker.

Catullus. c. 38

Bad, Cornificius, is your Catullus.

it’s bad, dear Herc, it hurts in every way,

and more, more every livelong day and hour.  

Have you done what’s super simple plus easy,

given him that comfort line I feel your pain?

I have rage for you. So much for my loving.

Some small scrap of I know what you’re going through

weepier than the tears Simonides wept.

Catullus. c. 37

Horny house of ill repute and you tent buddies,

ninth pillar down from chez Castor and Pollux in

those pointy hats, you figured you alone had dicks, 

that only you are free to fuck any old bitch

you please, and figure the rest are evil-smelling   

horndogs. Or because the hundred or two hundred 

of you idlers are sitting there all in a row, 

you think I won’t dare to bang two hundred en masse 

in the kisser? Go right ahead, go figure. For

I will graffiti your whole ugly storefront with

weenies. You see this bird who’s flown away from me

will be loved as much as no one will ever be,

a lot of hell has been raised over her by me

personally. She’s assumed her throne. She’s the one

you classy priviliged types all love plus — what is

heinous — all you pussies and backalley letches,

you and you alone frontrunner of the Jesus-

haired crew, son of bunnied-up Celtiberia,

Egnatius whose cultural capital is

his lumberjack beard and teeth scrubbed in Spanish piss.

Catullus. c. 36

Volusius’ archives, shat on papyri,

for my girllover’s sake, lay off of your vow.

For to the divine Venus and to Cupid

she’s promised — if back into her good graces

I could be and could stop flinging mean smear words —

the choicest writings of the worst of poets

she’ll give to the limp-foot god to barbeque

over logs from a sterile tree. That baddest

of bitches knew making this vow to the gods

was playing it cute. Now, from the blue green sea

begotten, you who in Mt. Ida’s holy grove

and wide and open Uria and who in

Ankon and sand-steeped Cnidos reside, and who

in Amathus and in Golgos and in the inn

Durrachium is for the Adriatic,

put the vow down as received and paid up if

it’s not ticky-tacky or unclassy. But

getting back to the matter off to the fire 

you go crammed with rude Hee Haw style one-liners,

Volusius’ archives, shat on papyri.

Catullus, c. 35

To a tender-hearted poet, my own pal, 

Caecilius: Papyrus, I’d like you to

tell him to come to Verona, take time off

from New Como’s walls and the Como lakeshore.

For there’s some ideas one of his and my friends

have that I want to run by him. That is why

if he gets it, he’ll inhale the road even

though his snow white lover girl a thousand times

calls him back on the road and flinging both hands

around his neck she implores him to linger.

She now, if the reports I’m getting are true,

luvs him to distraction with mad burning love.

For ever since she read his work in progress

Cybele tiny tongues of flame are snacking

on her inner marrow. I forgive you, babe,

more in the know than our muse Sappho for by

Caecilius one classy Great Mother’s launched.

Catullus. c. 34

Diana watches over us

girls and boys pure and virtuous.

Diana let’s all sing, we boys

and girls pure and virtuous.

 

O Leto’s child, the daughter great

of Jupiter the very great,

her mother brought you forth beside

an olive tree on Delos,

 

so you would be the patroness

of mountains and of bright green woods

and out of the way pasturelands

and rushing roaring rivers:

 

Lucina Iuno is your name

for women in the pangs of birth,

mighty Trivia is your name

and Moon borrowing sun’s light.

 

In your monthly rounds you measure,

goddess, the journey of the year,

countryside-wide the silos with

the farmer’s good fruits you fill.

 

Hallowed be you by whate’er name

may suit you, and Romulus’ tribe

may you keep safe as you were wont

in the old way in good store.

Catullus. c. 33

O hotshot of bathhouse bandits, daddy-o

Vibennius and your son the pervert (for

the father sports a pretty filthy right hand,

the son an ass that’s quite a bottomless pit)

why don’t you make yourselves scarce and get the hell

out of here? Seeing as your dad’s pilferings

are public knowledge on the street and one cent’s

worth of your hairy ass can’t, son, be your trade.

Catullus. c. 32

Please please, my sweetheart Ipsitilla, oh my

darling! you are one clever bitch — invite me

over to take my siesta at your side.

And if you do invite me, help me out with

something: Don’t let anyone put the bolt through

the front door, and you are not allowed to go

out of doors, but stay at home and get ready 

fucks one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.

But if you’re up to anything, may it be

to give me that invite on the double: For 

I’ve breakfasted and am lying around stuffed

on my back pounding through my tunic and quilt.