Richard George
Palladas
An old man at a symposium
Is propositioning good-time girls:
In vanity glass, they show him his face
And laugh at Palladas,
Schoolmaster, poet.
He never got his book out:
He always washed up here in Alexandria
On tides of debt, education’s menial,
Trapped in a garret
With his wife, his necessary evil.
And he scathed them in return,
The magistrates, the courtiers, philosophers
And Woman most of all;
The poor man’s Juvenal.
His wife is dead now.
June evening fades at last:
The old girls point. He almost doesn’t care.
He gathers his garland, shuts off pain
With jars of wine, drinking students
Under the table. Near the end,
He can love the world he lives in:
Little does he know
He will endure, a footnote
When the university city
Is dust in the ocean.
Page(s) 4
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