Gunn, Thom

When I was near the house of Circe, I met Hermes in the likeness of a young man, the down just showing on his face. He came up to me and took my hand, saying: ‘Where are you going, alone, and ignorant of the way? Your men are shut up in Circe’s sties, like wild boars in their lairs. But take heart, I will protect you and help you. Here is a herb, one of great virtue: keep it about you when you go to Circe’s house.’ As he spoke he pulled the herb out of the ground and showed it to me. The root was black, the flower was as white as milk; the gods call it Moly.

Homer. The Odyssey, Book 10.

Moly

1. Nightmare of beasthood, snorting, how to wake.
2. I woke. What beasthood skin she made me take?
3.  
4. Leathery toad that ruts for days on end,
5. Or cringing dribbling dog, man’s servile friend,
6.  
7. Or cat that prettily pounces on its meat,
8. Tortures it hours, then does not care to eat:
9.  
10. Parrot, moth, shark, wolf, crocodile, ass, flea.
11. What germs, what jostling mobs there were in me.
12.  
13. These seem like bristles, and the hide is tough.
14. No claw or web here: each foot ends in hoof.
15.  
16. Into what bulk has method disappeared?
17. Like ham, streaked. I am gross-grey, gross, flap-eared.
18.  
19. The pale-lashed eyes my only human feature.
20. My teeth tear, tear. I am the snouted creature
21.  
22. That bites through anything, root, wire, or can.
23. If I was not afraid I’d eat a man.
24.  
25. Oh a man’s flesh already is in mine.
26. Hand and foot poised for risk. Buried in swine.
27.  
28. I root and root, you think that it is greed,
29. It is, but I seek out a plant I need.
30.  
31. Direct me gods, whose changes are all holy,
32. To where it flickers deep in grass, the moly:
33.  
34. Cool flesh of magic in each leaf and shoot,
35. From milky flower to the black forked root.
36.  
37. From this fat dungeon I could rise to skin
38. And human title, putting pig within.
39.  
40. I push my big grey wet snout through the green,
41. Dreaming the flower I have never seen.

Meat

1. My brother saw a pig root in a field,
2. And saw too its whole lovely body yield
3. To this desire which deepened out of need
4. So that in wriggling through the mud and weed
5. To eat and dig were one athletic joy.
6. When we who are the overlords destroy
7. Our ranging vassals, we can therefore taste
8. The muscle of delighted interest
9. We make into ourselves, as formerly
10. Hurons digested human bravery.
11.  
12. Not much like this degraded meat — this meal
13. Of something, was it chicken, pork, or veal?
14. It tasted of the half-life that we raise
15. In high bright tombs which, days, and nights like days,
16. Murmur with nervous sound from cubicles
17. Where fed on treated slop the living cells
18. Expand within each creature forced to sit
19. Cramped with its boredom and its pile of shit
20. Till it is standard weight for roast or bacon
21. And terminated, and its place is taken.
22.  
23. To make this worth a meal you have to add
24. The succulent liberties it never had
25. Of leek, or pepper fruiting in its climb,
26. The redolent adventures dried in thyme
27. Whose branches creep and stiffen where they please,
28. Or rosemary that shakes in the world’s breeze.