Alexei saw it for himself, the newborn
Honey, so he wuz called, Honey
the mother wuz called Honey too
he scrambled back into the womb
.in uterum protinus reversus infans
Saginti .Alexei famously cranky and
wuz called Honey, too .and in both
beds shines the moon and so they draw
lots .and don’t see each other until the
collar, the confrere, Sergeant Householder
.salted meat .whose mind is ever thirsting
for the think you don’t know you still
can flinch, supporting his decaying strength
chewing raisins, wuz in the circle at the
collar .cuius tinctoria est mens .and she
.blutgierig, um den Hals die Perlenkette
diametrically opposite points the finger
.the flower of the white violet opens
suppurations Honey sez to Honey who
blanches .yes and all go back to the thumb.
The “Homeric Hymnists” cannot be identified with any certainty, save that none of them were “Homer” (author of the Iliad and Odyssey, and himself a figure of dubious historicity). They were, however, Homer’s literary descendants, singing and eventually writing about the Greek gods using the same poetic style. While a few of the Hymns seem to have been standalone pieces, most (including the Hymn to Selene) are evidently preludes, intended to bring the gods into the audience for the longer performances that followed. [Bio courtesy of Alexander Hall, Associate Teaching Professor of Classical Studies, Iowa State University.]
Fortunato Salazar lives in Los Angeles; his translation and other writing appear at The Atlantic, Ploughshares, Conjunctions, Guernica, Chicago Review, The Brooklyn Rail/InTranslation, and elsewhere.