Five Sonnets After Catullus

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I love and I hate (equation sonnet)  

 

            after Catullus 85 

 

 

 

if I am north to your south I am south to your south too 

 

if permeability measures the ability  

 

to support a magnetic field  

 

within the self  

 

I am permeable to the inverse ratio 

 

of your perfection  

 

attracted and repelled till my teeth  

 

are audible across the room, beyond the skies  

 

racing the Beatles song “Across the Universe”  

 

to reach some distant form of life 

 

which will be wondering, why would I compose  

 

such a complicated feeling-equation?  

 

I don’t know  

 

I just feel crucified  

 

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being a poet (waitress sonnet) 

        after Catullus 51

 

tips too much, that god sitting across from you, again 

and again, these extravagant gestures, it brings 

me down, brings down

sense and tongue, he, resounding 

with my longing, seems to me like a mirror, eyeing 

my fleeting glances, my feet tripping 

over chairs, idle laughter

or was it coins resounding, seizing the time 

yet revelry runs fiercely 

through my senses 

as if through the burning house of poetry 

my mouth lit up 

with dazzling fire, one day 

I’ll say something 

 

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trippy (bedroom sonnet) 

        after Catullus 2

 

trippy, this bird

you let under the sheet

of your shirt, eyes 

on me, making light

of the weight 

of your feelings, a skittering 

on your skin, if it hurts

you’re asking for it

should be soaring like a god 

into the sky, should be 

pouring out an ecstasy of song, should

should should should should should should 

should should should 

should should should 

 

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through and through (party sonnet)

                        after Catullus 27

 

tip this out, I won’t be served with

watered down wine, this is

wine procured by

a prefect, drunker than

a drunk grape,

setting an example

I feel 

I should follow...

off with you, water, you toxic

substance, too late

to effect a cure on me, I’m drunk

through and through,

it has spread to my nymph-nodes – 

I’m [hic] all wine’s

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tastes like wine (dawn sonnet) 

        after Catullus 48

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tastes like wine, this boy sitting across from me, his 

honey eyes looking like yours as he implores  

me to join him on the floor

the table a low ceiling swirling 

like a chandelier 

in the earthquake of these kisses

table legs circling 

like the blades of a combine harvester

every kiss is a near miss

my heart escaping like a mouse

into the corn 

the summer’s sun all rolled into one

ripeness I can 

never get enough of

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Anna Jackson is a New Zealand poet.  For more on her work, go to www.annajackson.nz. 

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Image: 

Photograph by  Simon Edmonds, supplied by author

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