The Nine Lyric Poets: Dirtbag Alcaeus

Previously in this series: Dirtbag Sappho parts I and II, Ibid. Catullus parts I and II, Ibid. Christina Rossetti.

Along with Sappho, Alcman, Pindar, Simonides, Bacchylides, Ibycus, Stesichorus, and Anacreon, Alcaeus is one of the Nine Lyric Poets of ancient Greece.

Collected Fragments of Alcaeus, trans. J.M. Edmonds, 1922.

The songs of Alcaeus, trans. J.S. Easby-Smith, 1901.

Poems by Alcaeus, trans. Walter Peterson, 2018.

NO MORE BIRTHDAY CAKE FOR LYCUS

I’m not thinking of Lycus now.

Arrivederci to the whole affair —

hunting for excuses to brush a forearm, to catch a hug —

no more songs about his hair, no matter how long he grows it out.

Let him grow it out forever. Let it hang like a dark veil,

like all the night falls on his back, I won’t put quill to ink.

Hair grows every day. Mine does too.

Or used to.

I’m through with treating every day like his birthday

— Never a gift bags, no thank-you notes,

never even “Glad you could make it” —

Might as well have spent each day alone in a pizza parlor ball-pit.

I’ve got too much to do with my new best friend,

Sappho. We’re from the same hometown,

so we have a lot in common —