Translations/Adaptations: 3 From Sydney Poem by Rob Dyer

From Sydney

All along Manly Beach simulacra of swimsuits,
lithe limbs polished to an antique bronze beneath the parasols,
odalisques from Isfahan to market in new Trebizond,
perhaps too sumptuously oiled to suit Charaxis late of Lesbos,
a wide-eyed boy from the steppes strides with flaring shoulders,
seeking among these uncouthly proffered wares the dark girl
the Cyprian may offer him, to ride the wild mountain ponies,
who has not yet braced up the loosened dugs of time
against tomorrow's overthrow - a boy, his arm engraved
with the eagle, the black one, the hunter also called morphnon -
but he will not ride the savage steppes to die in the golden
kurgans of old Pazyryk, he first will wither in oily age,
an old trade unionist, smelling now of garlic, olives
and cheap beer, deserted by his more than wife.

All along Manly Beach the simulacra shimmer,
the trade routes cross and strangers pass in Trebizond.
Within such somnolent security agony, agony
that all must pass unaided beside my futile arms.
Prometheus knew an agony more active-sinewed and more true -
one night in dark adventure sally forth, dear brother -

Fire on the mountain
Troy is fallen.
Fire from the bronze helm,
Hector wars no more.
Fire on the tree Zeus smites,
Prometheus' fire
Is gone by ship to Greece
from levelled Troy
With the keening woman slaves.