Epigrams
written by: Dilyan Benev
translated by: Tracy Speed
INDISPUTABLE
From Aesop to today
there’s no lack of foul play.
So whether you say yay or nay,
amidst the foul play of the day –
be an Aesop of today.
***
HEROSTRATUS
Even with ill fame,
there is glory all the same
to wash away shame –
deprived of any other fame.
***
THE HERO’S POWER
No gladiators
ventured like Spartacus –
though from that feat by Spartacus
ventured quite a few gladiators.
***
ACCORDING TO MERIT
Juvenal the satirist
fiercely scourged Rome.
With time, though, only to exist
in the ruins of Rome.
***
CLEOPATRA
Rather more clever
than she was beautiful.
Also quite sensible –
libidinous just when profitable.
***
UNATTAINABLE
A horse become a senator?…
Not that he’s more than a horse,
but since he’s Caligula’s horse –
mad enough
to be emperor.
***
WITHOUT SCRUPLES
All was possible
in the reign of Nero.
Even to kill your mother,
if you’re Nero –
to the glory of Nero!
***
IN THE NAME OF THE THRONE
Claudius the Stammerer
still became emperor.
To the disgust of every orator,
who did not become emperor.
***
SHORTSIGHTEDNESS
Caesar crossed the Rubicon –
Rome to vanquish.
And with the halo of a deity –
in the Senate of Rome,
by his own to perish.
***
THE SUN KING
From extravagance on high
in his palace of Versailles —
the misery of the people
would always lurk close by.
***
THE TRIAL OF BAUDELAIRE
A boomerang for his enemies –
tarnished with morality,
they condemned his poetry.
***
REVERENCE
Rimbaud is Rimbaud.
Such a young
and accomplished poet.
Indeed, you must be a poet
and not so young
to be ripe
for Rimbaud’s genius.
***
JUSTIFICATION
Voltaire and Rousseau –
their genius – just thriving!
And their genius for conniving…
With each other, always biting –
because they were Voltaire and Rousseau.
***
PREEMINENCE
Both Montaigne and Voltaire
are feeble moralists
before today’s terrorists
with the morals of Satanists.
***
THE TWO POLES
Nietzsche’s life
was rather tragic.
Yet without being Nietzsche
you can still be tragic –
if you’re prosaic.
***
COUNTERPOINT
Goethe was a minister.
For the renown
of every minister,
who became minister –
standing insignificant before Goethe.
***
PICASSO’S WOMEN
True amazement his genius induced,
and then, by his money –
they were truly well seduced.
***
THE PRICE OF GREATNESS
The great Salvador Dalí!
Incomparable!
And with the horns he wore – unattainable!
***
BOOMERANG
Promoted by his own.
Derided by everyone.
***
FOR REFLECTION
A grandee newly hatched will
vegetate in a castle.
***
LITERARY ORDERS
By the great ones prized.
By the small ones stigmatized.
***
AGGRANDIZEMENT
A venerable bureaucrat
with the halo of an aristocrat.
***
UNIMPEACHABILITY
Immaculately precise,
with insolent eyes.
***
WORLD STAR
A diva of porn –
in the cinema reborn.
***
GREAT RENOWN
Just a mere courtesan
But like the wife of a sultan.
