Mark Jarman
Patiode
 

Don't dress like Omar Khayyam, sonny.
I hate that sort of get-up.
It's gilding the lily in your case
            Anyway.

Keep it simple. Wear a sprig of something
I can sniff under the lanai
As you bend to pour me
            My chardonnay.

After Horace

 
XXXVIII

Persicos odi, puer, apparatus,
displicent nexae phylyra coronae;
mitte sectari, rosa quo locorum
            sera moretur.

Simplici myrto hihil adlabores
sedulus, cura: neque te ministrum
dedecet myrtus neque me sub arta
            vite bibentum

Horace, Odes, Book I

 

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