by

E.S. FRESE, JR.
____________

CARPE DIEM

Don’t try to find – it’s not for us
to know - what day for you, for me,
the Fates ordained our last. For sure,
don’t dapple with astrology.        

Much better to accept that what
will be, will be, whether we’ll see
more winters, or this one is it –   
which gnaws those cliffs with swirling sea.      
Be smart, just prep the wine, cut short
long hopes there’s always time:  for e-  
ven as we talk, the future – may-
be not our friend – is swift to flee.
So ‘Carpe Diem,’ grab today,
tomorrow may not come your way.

                             Horace:  Odes- Book I, 11

                *                *                *

Tu ne quaesierīs, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi
finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios
temptaris numeros. Ut melius quidquid erit pati,
seu pluris hiemes seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam,
quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare
Tyrrhenum: sapias, vina liques, et spatio brevi
spem longam reseces. Dum loquimur, fugerit invida
aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.

       Return to Poems Menu

_____________________

A SINGLE LOOK –
     On the Passing of a Lover
          June 2021

A single look
was all it took
to flash a paragraph of words.

A simple smile
was worth a mile
of kisses, hugs, and lustful stirs.

Was this just love?
or from above:
a mystic melting, soul to soul?

I cannot say,
but in their way
these memories help me feel consoled.

_____________________

INTIMATIONS OF THE VOID

Solid citizens seldom discuss it,
some wouldn't talk about it to
a living soul, but I know
they all know what I mean:

Usually, on a sleepless night
after a frantic day, or waking
up early after a fitful sleep
into fretful restlessness,

They are alone, and they are nothing, and
they are on the verge of dissolving
into the black hole of annihilation
beyond the void of death, forever.

And all that made them uniquely themselves - their hopes,
fears, gains, defeats, experiences, memories, and sense
of life - will come apart and irretrievably disappear
into the numberless and lightless caverns of eternity.

And they know it's true, they will, and they are
scared, scared, scared! from the tops of
their checking accounts to the tips of their
peep-peep-peep-all-the-way-home toes!

Because, for this instant, time collapses,
and these I'm-in-control-of-life adults flash back
to the helpless children who want someone
to hold them tight and make the scary thing go away.

It will, for a while, until the next sleepless
night or fit of restlessness, or the death
of someone close, or a forceful disruption of
expectations like sickness or failure,

Or a sudden soul-touching brush
with beauty, or even love - an ambush of love! -
wakes them up out of the dream of life
into the reality of living.

And perhaps this time the blackness of extinction will yield
to the realm of light, and the dissolution of their consciousness
into a then-it-shall-all-be-clear serenity, and in that instant,
that twinkling of an eye, they shall not fear the Void.

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_____________________

AS THE CITY TRIES TO SLEEP^*

Early one morning as I lay skidding between dream
sleep and conscious thought some idiot

revs and rrevs and rrrevs up his car

until its growing irksomeness jams
my full attention on his thoughtlessness

rrrevs and rrrevvs and rrrevvvs up his car

until I’d drop a brick on his thick skull
to make him feel my pain

rrrevvvs and rrrevvvss and rrrevvvsss up his car

until I'd kill to stop him

rrrevvvsss and rrrevvvsss and rrrevvvsss up his car

RRREVVVSSS and RRREVVVSSS and RRREVVVSSS up his car

RRREVVVSSS AND RRREVVVSSS AND RRREVVVSSS UP HIS CAR

then lLLURRRCCCHHHESSS out

and leaves me the

s i l e n c e

* Sometimes, as the late Edwin Morgan of Scotland showed with considerable
humor, and of course our own e.e. cummings throughout his life, typography
is a principal tool for conveying the sense of a piece.
.

HOW STEAM SWIRLS ON COLDER DAYS

Steam swirls and dissipates a certain way
on New York rooftops on a freezing day:

first rolling low upon itself, it brisk-
ly swoops in an upcurving arc whose thick-

ness, thinning, spins and spits out flying is-
land whiffs which melt invisibly to sky -

that's how I know it's cold, the trail curtails
so short so soon. On warmer days, steam sails

serenely up in long, unhurried sna-
king flumes of smoke that endlessly play

with sun and temperate air. I stomp my ting-
ling toes and go - the cold lets nothing ling-

er here. But still, on photo-still and si-
ent roofs, steam swirls - the only sign of life.

_____________________

            DAY
         -Spring, 2018-

A Moral Ode in a Victorian Mode

First one, then two, than many more -
The birds sing forth their herald score
To tell the world, in frantic din,
A great event is to begin:

Dawn breaks! and shooting streams of light
Into the sightless dark of night,
Soon makes the gloom recede and fade
And brightness flood the pools of shade.

What once was hid, is now all clear,
Another glorious day is here!
The gift that’s given all to use
To work, to play, or just to muse.

Then night returns, and day again,
And on and on in timely spend
Until for thee no dawn shall come,
When thou thy worldly task hast done.

But till that endless night arrive,
Do thou thy best and daily strive
To seize the day so thou shalt be
The special one that’s only thee.

____________________________________

THE SNOWS OF YESTERYEAR

Yesterday’s snows are all gone: now the fields are resplendent with green, the
trees sweetly softened with leaves;
all is transformed and renewed, with the melt-off’s that flooded the country-
side now returned to meek streams.

Couldn’t you imagine the Graces might venture out naked and lead a
chorus of Nymphs in dance? But -
never forget, you shall die! warn the seasons that turn and each hour
swift to devour each day:

Winter dissolves in March breezes, and Spring is incindered by Summer;
similar fates await Fall,
bursting with harvests and bounty, till soon, all too soon, comes chill Winter,
back with its death-grip on life.

There in the night sky, the moon can return to the splendor it lost; but
once we descend and join King
Ancus, rich Tullus, and Father Aeneas, it’s ashes to ashes,
just dream stuff to dust for us.

Who knows for certain the gods will allot to our sum of today’s, the
windfall of one more tomor-
row? But for certain, one thing can escape from our heirs’ greedy grasp: good
times we’ve enjoyed with good friends.

When you descend and appear at the Lord of the Underworld’s throne to
hear him pronounce what you dread,
background, Torquatus, your knack for persuasion, your piety, too, can’t
win your return to your life:

Even the goddess Diana couldn’t free chaste Hippolytus, trapped for-
ever in Stygian gloom, nor
Theseus - hero of heroes! - release his Pirithoüs, boon com-
panion, from Hades’ hard chains.

- loosely from Horace, Ode IV vii -“Diffugere nives,”
approximating his meter, the Third Archilochian;
(# 99 - 5/97: 1/99 +).

Diffugere nives

Diffugere nives, redeunt iam gramina campis
Arboribusque comae;
Mutat terra vices et decrescentia ripas
Flumina praetereunt;

Gratia cum Nymphis geminisque sororibus audet
Ducere nuda choros.
Immortalia ne speres, monet annus et almum
Quae rapit hora diem.

Frigora mitescunt Zephyris, ver proterit aestas
Interitura simul
Pomifer autumnus fruges effuderit, et mox
Bruma recurrit iners.

Damna tamen celeres reparant caelestia lunae:
Nos ubi decidimus
Quo pater Aeneas, quo dives Tullus et Ancus,
Pulvis et umbra sumus.

Quis scit an adiciant hodiernae crastina summae
Tempora di superi?
Cuncta manus avidas fugient heredis, amico
Quae dederis animo.

Cum semel occideris et de te splendida Minos
Fecerit arbitria,
Non, Torquate, genus, non te facundia, non te
Restituet pietas.

Infernis neque enim tenebris Diana pudicum
Liberat Hippolytum,
Nec Lethaea valet Theseus abrumpere caro
Vincula Pirithoo.

- Quintus Horatius Flaccus, Carmina IV, vii

8.  STERLING CHARACTER

Sterling character and a life without stain:
he who’s armed with these has no need of knife-sharp
spears nor bows whose quivers sport poisoned arrows,
               my dear friend Fuscus,

Anywhere his wanderings take him: whether
making tracks through sweltering deserts, or un-
welcoming Arctic, or those fabled places
               lapped by the Ganges.

This I learned when, deep in the Sabine woods, wolves -
while I sang of Lalagë, straying, armed thus,
past my safe farm, blissfully carefree – wolves fled -
               – just like that! - from me:

Fiercer beasts didn’t lurk in the steppes of old Rus-
sia, where heartless Cossacks were bred to kill, nor
prowled the sand-duned arid Sahara’s vastness,
               nurture for lions.

Set me down wherever: those sluggish regions
lacking trees or sweet summer breezes’ relief;
or that dark, dank corner where Jove, unkind, sneers
               grey skies and drizzle;

Where the sun’s bright chariot blazes too near,
or those wastelands empty of men and dwellings,
still I’ll love my Lalagë, laugh and sing of
               Lalagë, my love!

- loosely from Horace, Ode I xxii - “Integer vitae,”
approximating his meter, the Sapphic;
“Lalagë” is the name of Horace’s love interest of the moment;
(# 91 - 5/97: 1/99 +)

INTEGER VITAE
 

Integer vitae scelerisque purus
Non eget Mauris iaculis neque arcu
Nec venenatis gravida sagittis,
               Fusce, pharetra,

Sive per Syrtis iter aestuosas,
Sive facturus per inhospitalem
Caucasum vel quae loca fabulosus
               Lambit Hydaspes.

Namque me silva lupus in Sabina,
Dum meam canto Lalagen et ultra
Terminum curis vagor expeditis,
               Fugit inermem,

Quale portentum neque militaris
Daunias latis alit aesculetis
Nec Iubae tellus generat, leonum
               Arida nutrix.

Pone me pigris ubi nulla campis
Arbor aestiva recreatur aura,
Quod latus mundi nebulae malusque
               Iuppiter urget;

Pone sub curru nimium propinqui
Solis in terra domibus negata:
Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo,
               Dulce loquentem.

- Quintus Horatius Flaccus, Carmina I, xxii

____________________________________

A SWEET DISORDER
    (Scatting off Herrick’s poem of the same title)

I wonder, Bella, if you'll ever know your tell-
tale thread taught me a telling truth? With you so well-
dressed at work, so soullessly slick, so quick to spot
another's fault, I should have smirked and sniped and not

have spared you when I caught that thread hanging absurd-
ly from your skirt, as you harangued a nodding herd
of corporate sheep. But I had spied on you and seen
your sweetness ooze in gentle tears while you, in sec-

ret, kissed your aging father's photograph. So, when
I saw your dangling shame, I wished to shield you then
and snip it off before the others smirked. Instead
of letting me despise your frailties, your thread

had taught me how a slight disorder in the dress
can kindle one to love another's humanness.

____________________________________

TO KATE

You asked me why I loved you, Kate. I said
I loved you for that taste, that certain grace
you have, that lovely, other-worldly face,
that racy wit and charmed embrace. You said

I dressed you in my ready-made wish-fan-
tasies of ideal womanhood with no
regard to fit, and so I loved a hope-
ful dream, not really you. Then I began:

I love you for your cheeks that curve your part-
ed chin, your curls, your shining eyes, your girl-
ish grin, your cooling touch upon my burn-
ing skin... but cut it short to speak my heart:

I love you, Kate, because you satisfy
my soul, and know without your love, I'd die.

TO MY LITERARY FRIEND

You left me with your loneliness today:
we parted at my door, shook hands, and then
you disappeared into the drizzling grey.
You left me with your worried need to spend

each dragging minute, hour, day on bus-
y things to do, indifferent friends to see -
a trick to keep your creeping anguishes
from pouncing in a panicked leap and scream-

ing out "I'm so alone, and no one cares!"
You left me with your fear of death today:
but surely, there's an answer; surely there's
a one whose company would make time race

by very fast - too fast - in shared delight!
Or is your dread of love too great to fight?
____________________________________

1. AVE AND VALEDICTION

EASY LOVE

MY SOUL'S DISEASE

   * from the collection Classical Thoughts In Current Words 

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