Forum Member Poetry to Illuminate Epicurean Philosophy

This is great, Pacatus!

I recall a running gag among my friends in high school about a book I was (not) writing called A Discourse on the Various Pastas.

Stephen Greenblatt cites the following passage from Montaigne--a great lover of On the Nature of Things--as evidence that the rediscovery of classical thought made it possible to turn our attention from heaven back to earth, and find even the little things about ourselves worthy of interest and comment.

Quote

I am not excessively fond either of salads or fruits, except melons. My father hated all sorts of sauces; I love them all. Eating too much hurts me; but, as to the quality of what I eat, I do not yet certainly know that any sort of meat disagrees with me; neither have I observed that either full moon or decrease, autumn or spring, have any influence upon me. We have in us motions that are inconstant and unknown; for example, I found radishes first grateful to my stomach, since that nauseous, and now again grateful. In several other things, I find my stomach and appetite vary after the same manner; I have changed again and again from white wine to claret, from claret to white wine.

-Montaigne

It connects us also to the prehistory of our species, when, by noticing the pleasures and pains induced by what they ate, they spared themselves and their progeny the misfortune of dying by wolfsbane and poison hemlock--and also of living "by bread alone". Our ancestors found the grape and the milk sweet, and left us also the wine and the cheese.

Incidentally, my father really doesn't like garlic, while I like it very much! De gustibus non est disputandum--there is, sometimes, no accounting for taste.

Because I can be obsessive about such things as spacing and indentation, I'm going to try to post this poem as a snip:

When All Our Words Have Been Turned

When all our words have been turned and turned
like flowers tossed in a stormy breeze
till wind-burnt and bruised, bereft
of the brightness we once beheld in them
when first we set them out in the sun –

I am drawn to consider
how the hummingbirds madly dart
among bee balm and scarlet impatiens
without debate or invitation –
having borne themselves on many winds,
turned and turned, until turning
into this corner of our garden
to dance and mate the summer season,

mocking without intention
our laborious chains of reason.

Midsummer at Terrapin Branch

Into midsummer tall days come, striding like kings
with green eyes, wearing plum-stained robes and golden crowns
gleaming high as the cathedral-spire sun at noon,
to our cottage on the creek called Terrapin Branch—

The kingfisher rattles his voice at the heron,
high priest of the creekwater, and clear light casts
crinkling-bright nets in the current and rocky pools,
where quicksilver fish scatter quicker than a blink

if you look too close. The summer bees are minstrels
thrumming among the new melons and cucumbers
in our sun-wheel garden; hummingbirds cavort
in crimson beebalm; towering sunflowers loom

over the warm brick walkways, laid out like ley lines
to travel the eight-wind rose rounding out the wheel.
Mornings shimmer like polished doubloons, afternoons
burn deeper, like rubies, as the sun rubs the west.

Heavy heat-thunder murmurs, crickets come alive,
fireflies flash their faery torches in falling gloom,
and soon the druid-owls will drone their mournful psalms
in the cedar-oak wood, with somber shadows hung

under a swelling moon. The night will be sultry
and short, as ghostly night-hunters hunt without blame
in high-ridge forest or thistled creek-meadow field,
and echo their killing-cries down the winding glen.

But soon the clinging gown of darktime falls away
as another tall day, with gold-glimmering crown
and green eyes, strides into tomorrow, innocent
of yesterday’s doings under the sun or moon.

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Since we were recently talking about living off the land, this poem relates to our years, that I briefly described in that thread, of living at Terrapin Branch; written shortly after we left there.

After Lucretius

Nothing comes from nothing – so the poet
Lucretius taught – and nothing goes to naught,
but all returns – body and soul dispersed
whence they emerged. Epic fugue: ebb and surge
turn the seasons, churn the tides – death and birth.

We are of the earth, and the earth rejoin –
our heritance – from soil to newborn seed:
flowering herbs, fruit that will be vinted
into ruddy wine, bees and butterflies
to pollinate the ongoing flourish

of nature’s evolution – selected –
without fate or favor, or the strictures
of supernatural creeds. Life breeds life
and feeds on life – and just as we’ve been fed,
the coming generations will we feed –
from germinal remains of our remains.
Ask for nothing more: suck not vanity
from the empty skull of speculation.

We all will die – and cannot live nor die
but once: so live well while you are able –
from superstition set free. You are flesh
of this world: teeming Garden, primal womb
no tomb or mausoleum can embalm.

No need to fear – there is nowhere to go.

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I just entered this poem in a contest for poems about death from a non-theistic perspective. Of course, I've taken some poetic license ...

Sunlight Vinted

Dandelion wine: sunlight
vinted – like bee-mellowed mead,
but from bawdy yellow flowers
gathered in the common grass

last May – bottled in green,
and under the cellar stairs – hid
with baskets of apples
and braided sweet onions –
till the bitter winterfrost melts.

Now – in the budding flush
of vernal equinox – uncorked
and poured: gold-glowing elixir
to rival the Druids’ brew –

near year-old sunlight, swirled
in a tulip glass – as we toast
the holy day of Ostara
who dances – nubile and skyclad –
in silver, dew-sleeved grass.

++++++++++

Bee-mellowed: a kenning, as mead is made from honey.

Druids’ Brew: mead.

Ostara: A pagan goddess of springtide; especially the first day of spring celebrated at the vernal equinox.

Skyclad: a euphemism for naked.

I Take My Pleasure As I Take My Ease

I take my pleasure as I take my ease:
in small measure – sherry-aged brandy, neat;

afternoon sunshine splashed on windowpanes,
warming the corners of a winter-chilled
room, lulling old bones to a drowsy nap;
wool-stockinged feet, snug on a threadbare rug
from Persia, laid on the worn oaken floor;

windchimes tinkling tintinnabulations
on the porch: clever, silver-tinted tones
to stir a waltz of fantasy and dream;

later a supper of thick lentil soup
with feta cheese and a rustic red wine.

~ ~ ~

I take my pleasures as I take my ease:
frugal treasures (with little toil) to please.

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“sherry-aged brandy”: Fundador Spanish brandy is aged in sherry casks, giving it a unique, mellow flavor. My favorite, though I haven’t enjoyed it in some time.

Who We Really Are

To the mainstreet world e’er a stranger –
though once I dreamt to be a ranger,

no matter how you hem or bob it,
truth told: I’ve always been a hobbit.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

Originally posted to Nate's Gallery pic: https://www.epicureanfriends.com/wcf/gallery/im…are/#comment536

Odysseus Sailing Home

Inspired by Vatican Saying 48

While we are journeying, keep even keel,
sails unfurled to fair sou’easter winds –
and harken keen for the welcoming peal

of harbor bells – tolling us home at last
from our wayward wanderings afar,
allured by vanities that now slip past:

their vestiges churning in our white wake –
as we set our compass for a course
that will we to Ithaca’s Gardens take.

There in the balm of blooming orchards’ shade
we can drowse to hum of golden bees,
sip retsina wine from own vineyards made,

savor lemon-soaked olives, feta cheese –
and woo our lovely Penelope,
even in dreams borne by a zephyr breeze.

~ ~ ~

Home is a destination, not a place
fixed in history well left behind:
keep even keel – as this sea-track we trace.

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Vatican Saying 48: “We must try to make the end of the journey better than the beginning, as long as we are journeying; but when we come to the end, we must be happy and content.”

“sou’easter”: The last leg of Odysseus’ journey home would have been from the southeast in the Ionian Sea. Here, Odysseus’ seafaring journey home is a metaphor, with poetic license.

Homely Fare

I twist the corkscrew to open
a saved bottle of dry Syrah.

Our chosen entrees differ: I
opting for a seasoned filet,
you for vegetarian grill –
both from our own galley kitchen,
with fresh vinaigrette salad greens.

We celebrate our festive meal,
as always, with a toast: “¡Salud!” –

wishing each other well-being
and health – and long life together:
after all these years being near,

pleasure is yet homely fare shared.

+++++++++++++++++++

"Homely" is a bit of a pun: it can mean homey and comfortable, or simple and plain, or untidy and unattractive.

Quote from Kalosyni

Epicurean Ode to Philosophy (Prose Poem by Kalosyni)

Prose poetry is not that easy to pull off; Robert Bly did it well. (I’ve tried my hand a time or two – with, at best, mixed results.) This is good. I especially liked: “When the healthy pulse of the body holds the highest truth.” And there is nice alliteration there (as elsewhere in the poem). (Only editorial comment – about which things I myself am very stubborn: you could maybe lose the third “the” – or maybe not: the rhythm holds.) I also like the metaphor of pleasure as “a flower which blooms again and again.”

Anyway, makes me want to try my hand at a prose poem again – when the opportunity presents itself.

An Ode on Philodemus and His Loves

Philodemus, how goes your bawdy verse
– on papyrus got from Egyptian trade,
scribed in that seaside villa, sun-awash’d,
at Rome’s lush Herculaneum retreat –
with that green-garth Garden in Athens laid?

Did some rousing summer sirocco tease
memories to lyric erotic lays?
Or did you mean passion to celebrate
as natural desire – Venus enflesh’d?

~ ~ ~

How did you with young Lysidikē fare?
Were you able to flee her suitors’ fire,
and then to bed – as with Xantho so fair
(honey-voiced muse, sensuously perfumed)
with candle snuffed in Aphrodite’s lair?

Charito, still lusty at sixty years,
whose scintillating ambrosia you laud
– with her graceful and voluptuous form,
her robust bosom nor yet cumbered round –
why called you younger lovers to her door?

(Had you by then attained a calmer age,
more suited to treatises penned in prose
than pursuing comely Cydilla’s charms,
or Heliodora’s shameless salt tears?)

And what of that dark-skinned Philaeniŏn,
whose curly hair your ardor so enthralled?
Or all those Demoses, of whom you claim
– from Paphos, Samos, Naxos, Argos come –
tongue in cheek, are the meaning of your name?

Or Lysianassa – five drachmas paid
for twelve hours of amorous, pure delight?
Did you treat her well? Did she, too, enjoy
the raptures you purchased – spare from your purse?

(Also Philestion, who would not deign
take a lover who could not bear the price?)

Italian-born Flora, inept to sing
Sappho’s opulent melodious odes,
uncultured as she was in urbane ways:
‘twas her body you ribaldly extolled,
likened to an Ethiopian queen.

Was Xanthippe, whose deft fingers alight
– and her eyes with invitation aflame –
smoldered your soul as she strummed on her lyre,
your truest love: paramour without wane,
in saffron boudoir wooed with heartfelt troth?

~ ~ ~

How might they to Leontion compare:
lost philosopher (courtesan perhaps,
like your own Thermiŏn) so richly-learned,
whose wit and wisdom Epicurus praised?

Or Themista Lampascus – little known,
to able Leonteus wed? They both
jealous skeptic Cicero rudely mocked
for refusal to stand lower than men –
as he mocked their mentor, our Garden sage.

Do we imagine them more churchly-chaste?
Was the Garden more convent in disguise
– more proprietous to puritan taste –
than friends who mingled freely as they pleased
in happy communion, meting no harm?

(Ah, methinks they hewed to that kindly creed:
“Stranger, you are welcome to tarry here,
and would do well – as pleasure is our fare:
a simple table abundantly plied,
and pleasant talk to keep you entertained.”)

~ ~ ~

O, none of those ladies let us rebuke!
Nor you, Philodemus, for your desire!
To latter-day judgments let us be loath.
Pleasure is pleasure – of body or mind –
so long as you suffer not, nor cause pain.

Philodemus, philosopher refined:
author of the mnemonic fourfold cure
for maladies plaguing the human lot,
who wrote on inference as well as verse,

on kings and piety toward the gods,
and of household property taking care
– in philosophy and poetic flair
ever the Garden’s guidings were your rede,

lamplight oil burnt in the tablinum late –
while lively loving the women you loved,
as you flourished your threescore years and ten –
no forgiveness needed – to ask nor give.

~ ~ ~

So we leave you now, in memory held,
our poet of pleasure fused in the flesh –
and curate of Epicurean lore
for the Romans of Piso’s porticos
before Vesuvius locked them in ash.

Ashes to ashes – and in ash preserved,
the rolled scrolls on which you scripted your words:
foundlings for posterity to adopt
as we may, according to our own days.

Fare thee well, Philodemus, fare thee well.
Your journey ended – your essence dispersed
into the worldly-weaving universe –
only what has been writ do we retell.

Fare thee well, Philodemus, fare thee well.

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I have tried to name at least most of the women Philodemus wrote about as lovers (in italics, here, by name), in each case alluding to Philodemus’ verses. And there are oblique references and allusions (with some poetic license), with maybe a few pseudo-puns, from his erotic aphoristic poems.

You can read translations of the poems wherein the above-named women occur here: https://www.attalus.org/poetry/philodemus.html. (Also in Nate’s Hedonicon.)

“Venus” – a metaphorical usage, à la the opening lines of Lucretius.

Philestion: She is not included in the attalus.org collection, but is in David Sider’s translations (cited below); there is some disagreement over whether it was Philodemus who wrote of her, or another.

Re Flora: the implication is that she was a rustic Italian, who knew no Greek – as opposed to a cultured Roman. “Ethiopian queen”: Perseus’ queen Andromeda, who was Ethiopian.

Re Leontion as a “lost” philosopher: https://philosophynews.com/leontion-the-l…an-philosopher/

“…friends who mingled freely as they pleased / in happy communion, meting no harm” – This line, as it came, reminded me for some reason of Alice Walker’s novel The Temple of My Familiar (for any who might be – with that work – familiar).

“kindly creed” – from the quote: "Stranger, here you will do well to tarry; here our highest good is pleasure. The caretaker of that abode, a kindly host, will be ready for you; he will welcome you with bread, and serve you water also in abundance, with these words: ‘Have you not been well entertained? This garden does not whet your appetite; but quenches it.’" (Said to be the inscription on the Garden gate; recorded by Seneca.)

“essence” – atoms, of course.

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Written in a loose (syllabic) blank verse, with a liberal sprinkling of intermittent rhyme and slant rhyme – and a few archaicisms.

Additional reference: https://www.jstor.org/stable/294819 “The Love Poetry of Philodemus” by David Sider.

Sider speculates that Xanthippe likely became Philodemus’ wife (or at least his last and monogamous paramour) – and that Xantho might have been a nickname for Xanthippe, rather than another lady (while noting that none of the names might be real, but poetic tropes). He also notes that the “I” of any given poem might not be (or not entirely be) Philodemus himself, but a character-voice the poet created.

Also: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3295958

I have also consulted Sider’s book: The Epigrams of Philodemus: Introduction, Text, and Commentary (Oxford University Press, 1997)

I took the liberty of using Genevra Catalano’s rendering of Philodemus under the title.

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NOTE: Although Epicurus was criticized for not properly upholding the culture of male privilege, Philodemus seems – at least in his youth – to have taken full advantage, and even celebrated (even if, in his middle years, he settled down to a lifelong love). He is the author of a few poems whose voice is that of a woman addressing her lover.

“A Moveable Feast”

Your Garden can bloom wherever you are:
second-story city apartment flat,
pelted by the frantic, clattering din
of hectic workday traffic in the street –
as well as a sylvan country estate.

Herbs and bright flowers in pots on the deck
– oregano, orange marigolds, thyme –
overlooking a public parking lot,
visits from butterflies and bees invite
in this urban build of brick and concrete.

Simple meals, prepared of organic fare
gathered from local farmers’ market aisles,
as seasons permit, nourishment provide –
and the occasional restaurant treat
favors us flavors that hale from afar.

Close friends, family on holidays meet.
Neighbors in the hallway greet with a smile.
Cats keep pleasant company quiet days.
And in a digital Garden, world-wide,
old souls gather to explore ancient ways.

~ ~ ~

The Garden is grace you can always find –
“a moveable feast” – as you are of mind.

+++++++++++

“A moveable feast” – Title of Hemingway’s memoirs of Paris as a young man. The book’s epigraph provides the source quote: “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a movable feast.” (Ernest Hemingway, to a friend, 1950)

Okay, I’ll allow myself a moment of shameless crowing : My “Sunlight Vinted” poem (posted in this thread) just got selected for the front page of the poetry site where I publish many of my poems. Result: I’ve had 553 readers of the poem, and a few great comments!

Congratulations Pacatus !

This of course calls for a bit of dandelion wine....

Urban Concerto Afternoon

Banjos twang off-key in the paper-wasps’ nest
under third-story city stack-house eaves.

Hard-hat hammers clang a jazzy drumbeat
from the construction site across the street.

Cars blare trumpets at the stop-light corner;
trucks’ diesel trombones moan down the highway
that rolls unraveled asphalt sheet music
from Teaneck to tipsy hills of Frisco.

Thunderheads churn and bluster from the west,
rumbling to deep-throated tubular bells,
as hailstones strike quick-pattering mallets
to rally marimba rhythms on windowpanes.

Sipping a siesta snifter of cognac,
I drowse to filigree flutes in gutter spouts –

and dream of tipsy Frisco sunset hills.

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The Epicurean connection is finding tranquility even amidst cacophony – here by imagining the discordant sounds as a musical mix, and remembering another place …

“Teaneck … Frisco”: Interstate 80 runs from Teaneck, New Jersey to San Francisco – the deck at one corner of our apartment gives a view of a short section of that highway (the other deck overlooks a small lake).

Leontion

Leontion, your treatises are lost
and we are left with mere hints of your wit:
a woman scorned for her acuity,
an affront male ego could not acquit.

Cicero slandered you, as was his wont,
for what he claimed was your effrontery
– putting yourself in a man’s proper place –
while granting your linguistic mastery.

Being a hetaera, if such you were,
should disconcert us not a whit – no more
than our liberal-minded hegemon
who praised your acumen, in Garden lore,

not out of charity but true esteem:
ours are no puritan moral dictates,
laid down by god-bound books and robed high priests,
but drawn from what pure nature celebrates.

And so, Leontion, we honor you
in absentia – the least that is fair –
as both romantic and philosopher:
you, our worthy forebear – and we your heir.

++++++++++++++++++++++

“romantic” – a bit of poetic license, drawing loosely on Frances Wright’s fictional portrait.

I referenced some links to this “lost philosopher” here: RE: Leontion (Leontium) - Main Biography

Also read Joshua’s poem “To Boccaccio: A Rebuke” here: Joshua's Epicurean Themed Poetry Megathread

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Image is from Epicurus en Leontium, Ludwig Gottlieb Portman, 1803

Bees in the Arbor Drowse

(For Richard Parker)

Bees in the arbor drowse and dream
under a golden gauze of summer-noon sun.

Green scuppernong grapes ripen to speckled bronze
in a mantle of sawtooth, thick-veined leaves.

Bamboo chimes, hung from back-porch beams,
cluck in the flutter of a light-fingered breeze.

~ ~ ~

We laze in Tennessee-cedar Adirondack chairs,
sip sour-mash whiskey from mason jars,
chuckle as we spin to each other the same
age-old lies we’ve peddled for years
as our beards have ashened from brindle to gray –

poetic license, we tell ourselves,
to rout those pesky poltergeists, who pester us
in that dusty attic of keepsakes
we wish we had pawned rather than kept:

memories we packed away, not to recall
but forget. And so we embellish the tales
of our past lives, as we smirk and wink.

~ ~ ~

Bees in the arbor daydream and drowse:
once-on-a-time conjured – under a whiskey-tinged sun.

++++++++++++

Richard Parker: an old Tennessee friend who used to call and say, “Come on over. We’ll sit and have a drink, smoke our pipes – and tell each other lies.” "tell ... lies": a bit of joking tongue-in-cheek, of course. I’ve taken some poetic license …