ON FIRST LOOKING INTO HOMER’S CHAPMAN

                                    Much have I journeyed through gaols of infamy,

                                    rubbed shoulders with slags and dossed with scrotes,

                                    where even the screws inhale leaves of the lotus.

                                    Worst was Arnaeus, a pusher gone to beggary.

                                    Ithaca’s streets he shamed with such gross lubricity

                                    to gorge all day long the paunch of goats,

                                    blood dripping from labials, wine-dark oglers agloat.

                                    Insatiable in appetite and bent on bigamy,

this bloated soak had form as long as law’s arm:

robbery, jobbery, grassing, causing grievous,

vowing to cut privy parts for offal and harm

all who mocked his libations.  He’d got previous

for exposure, ungirding his loins and alarming

travellers innocuous, mischievous and devious.

                                                            Michael Small

May 31, 1994

pub.  New England Review, no.6, Winter, 1997, NSW, AUSTRALIA