Mater Saeva... Poem by Morgan Michaels

Bring, cruel Mother of scurrilous
desires and you, Theban Liber and
you, leering Licentia,
back to me now the jeering ghosts of all past

loves, for Glycera's body, paler
than Parian stone- the graces, the
wiles it enfolds-
haunts me, and she knows it, she knows.

Clearly, the Cyprian means to ruin
me utterly and no prattle about
war or war's horses
may supercede her theme.

Spread blood-red blossoms, spread
greenery about me, lads,
and incense burn, that that and a bottle may
serve to change her heart.


Horace I: 19