Chorus: Pythagoras
And since I am moved on the wide sea
Et quoniam magno feror aequore plenaque ventis
full sail stretched: there is nothing in this world
vela dedi: nihil est toto, quod perstet, in orbe.
that stands in place. All things are flowing, made
cuncta fluunt, omnisque vagans formatur imago
each of them of refracting shapes, themselves
ipsa quoque adsiduo labuntur tempora motu,
adversely flowed upon in time’s persistent currents,
non secus ac flumen; neque enim consistere flumen 180
not following the tide—nor can the tide
nec levis hora potest: sed ut unda inpellitur unda
a moment hold still or light; but just as wave piles in
urgeturque prior veniente urgetque priorem,
on wave urging the next and urged on by
tempora sic fugiunt pariter pariterque sequuntur
the last so all things flee in time and
et nova sunt semper; nam quod fuit ante, relictum est,
follow and are always new; for what once was
fitque, quod haut fuerat, momentaque cuncta novantur.
is left behind, and made to be what once
was not, all things in every moment made again
Chorus: Agamemnon
τὴν δ ̓ ἐγὼ οὐ λύσω: πρίν μιν καὶ γῆρας ἔπεισιν
ἡμετέρῳ ἐνὶ οἴκῳ ἐν Ἄργεϊ τηλόθι πάτρης
ἱστὸν ἐποιχομένην καὶ ἐμὸν λέχος ἀντιόωσαν
tên d’égw oû lüsw : prîn min kai gêras épeisin hêmetérw éni oïkw én Argeï têlot’hi patrês histon époik’homénên kai émon lék’hos antiowsan I will not let her go till old age comes on her
at home in Argos far from her kinsmen
keeping my loom and coming to my bed
begins the poem I want you to see and to hear it in near inarticulable cruelty (which of course it finds ways to articulate) between the loom and bed of Agamemnon the chainshaking steps of virgin Khrüseis
who never will see home again
until he tires of raping her this is the Lord Commander Lord of Men ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν anax andrwn Agamemnon in Homer I said to my friend once the finish is such that all things shine the wound in Menelaus’ leg later dyed ivory Fitzgerald says saying even our wounds are someway adornments George Steiner wonders how they could sing Schubert while murdering children in Dachau this is the reason why
Apollo’s arrows now:
Chorus: Eulogy, Solar
There are some things I won’t write about not because I can’t or don’t want to or don’t know how but because I want to leave them like rocks in the weave of the brook by my grandfather’s place which I drank from at ten it being so cold it hurt with the taste of mud and all the dead leaves steel and hoarfrost it gathered falling down the mountain’s slope which they’ve been carving at ten years to build new houses
Some things I won’t write about because I want to leave them like those kids drunk on their vomit in Greenfield Park at Canada Day the first time between two urinals talking about their failed love moving like wasps at the end of summer slowly freezing in their branches
Like those first words you speak to someone you want to have sex with not knowing what sex is
Like the whispers of rats in the walls and slamming a cutting board edgewise down on their glue-trapped heads
I won’t write about the horizon again the sea’s paradoxical smile I won’t write about JF and I
I won’t write about how it was to see you first in snow De Mentana not having met you yet
And there are those other things
James Dunnigan is a poet from Montreal and author of two chapbooks, "The Stained Glass Sequence" (Frog Hollow Press 2019) and "Wine and Fire" (Cactus Press, 2020). His work has appeared in such places as CV2, Maisonneuve Magazine, Montreal Writes and Graphite Publications.