Random Descent

      (after Catullus)

You ask how many amorous rebuffs

I have sustained, Lesbia. I reply:

As many as the dark clouds that batter

The minor Boeing’s gradual descent

To Samos’ fair isle in the winter;

As many as particulates are blent

In noble Athens’ smog in sultry summer;

As many as the dark Aegean waves

That smash the hulls of hydrofoils, then scatter,

And hurl the stewardesses to their knees,

And clog the lavatories with lumpen matter.

You ask me: when will I have had my fill?

I answer: this poet’s totally unresting

In his quest to map new archipelagos

Of excruciation; will keep testing 

Brave theories of pure embarrassment

Till cloud, smog and wave bow down before                                                    

The statisticians, marvelling at the data,

And the wagging tongues, just murmuring, now, in awe.