Epigrams

1
Asclepius lays his hands
on the silence around the body
then listens for the sound
he knows so well,
of immortality.
Actual life or death
is not his business.
2
Endymion sleeps forever,
postponing immortality
which is
an intensity of wakefulness.
3
Bacchus has mixed
water from the river Lethe
with these crushed grapes:
each small lapse rehearses
the longer forgetting.
4
Yesterday, you were Silenus;
last night, Priapus…
O Apollo, do you not know
how beautiful you are?
5
Dionysus,
play your part in what I seek:
ecstasy without indulgence,
a shriven joy—
I want to be happy,
but not fat.
6
Tantalus
is the pleasure principle
defeating itself;
Sisyphus,
the futile triumph
of the work ethic.
7
Help us to find the music, Orpheus,
not to enchant into movement
trees and rocks and plants,
but to leave them be.