Sappho Fragment #31 - National Poetry Day

An improvisation translation of ancient Greek poet Sappho's popular Fragment #31 in honour of national poetry day:


It’s as if he were a God, or no better
than one – at least a little lucky, no better
blessed than the best. His bravado really
becomes him there beside you...

But you – your breath’s
softer subtleties laughing, lingering – seeing you
there bewitches me right down
deep to the soul. I have no speech: it all

snapped
away, Lesbia,
while lynching my once-limber limbs stiffly
together in a rising passion-fire,

where in that heat I fountain cold sweat and
beat-beat-faster, grass-green as a lover,
going over and over with my eyes
until I’m blind; unfocussed –

oh

you cannot work in her presence.
Cannot work, never work with her:

she undoes his doings, she completely
undoes him as countless kings have come
undone before.