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writing & publishing

Catullus 12

While everyone else is laughing & drinking
you extend
    a surreptitious claw,
Asinius,
    towards the table napkins
of the negligent…
    an unattractive habit
you misguidedly think funny.
You demur?
    I assure you
it is at once squalid & unattractive.
Ask Pollionus, your brother
a boy crackling with wit
who would give a substantial sum
to disembarrass himself of your talents.
Expect, Asinius, a bombardo
of 300 hendecasyllables, or
return my napkin –
    of small value itself,
but a memory of friends,
    Veranius & Fabullus,
who sent this set of fine table linen
from Spain,
    a present cherished by Catullus
at his own Veraniolus –
as Fabullus mine – must always be.

From this translation of Catullus‘ poems.

By Mark Newton

Born in 1981, live in the UK. I write about strange things.