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Sport 28: Autumn 2002
Style and Completeness
Style and Completeness
The law maker has posted
his reforms and reinforced
them with public recitations
of his poetry.
Slaves will be freed,
wealth will be measured
in wine, grain and equal
harvests of the soil
and trade in pottery
and olive oil will be increased.
Poverty will end in Attica!
Of course, there are complaints.
His treatment of political issues
is too lengthy,
his vocabulary is too plain,
his view of life too moderate
and optimistic.
‘Where are grief and loss?’
he is asked.
‘The outer limits?
The worst possibilities?
The gulf between Olympus
and suffering man?’
The law maker is displeased.
He has spent the summer
balancing and refining
his constitution,
abolishing serfdom
and freeing ‘those who…
trembled at their masters' whims’.
‘Why,’ he might have written,
‘must I adjust my Athenian tongue?’
Nonetheless, he tugs at his chiton.
The next day he visits his mother
who welcomes him with
an inventory of the items
she will be taking
to the other side:
scarves, brooches, ribbons,
a hundred pairs of sandals
and soft shoes,
a hundred tunics in wool
and thin linen.
The law maker looks east and west
and attends to his beard.
‘No one should go down
with more than three
sets of clothing,’ he says.
‘But life is hot, and boring,’
she reminds him.
‘Levitation's impossible,
there's no future in geology,
no change from the coin
we will place in our mouths
for the river man
and little chance the many
headed dog will be persuaded
to fetch and carry.’
‘Then we should all be buried
with board games,’ he replies
and hurries home to
write another elegy,
post another decree
in the market place,
apply himself to message,
metre and couplets
with his customary discretion
and in several striking tongues.