Classic Poem

'a dry soul is wisest and best'

Biographers write that above all men
he was a lofty and hubristic spirit.
A walking contradiction, he would shout
that Homer should be turned out of the lists
and beaten, and Archilochus as well,
since better to extinguish impertinence,
than to put out fire. He felt that men
should fight for law as much as for their city.
Yet, when requested to make laws for them,
he turned them down, by arguing their city
already had a faulty constitution.
Besides, he had important things to do:
a game of dice with children at the Temple.
(It was there his magnum opus lay.)
Turned misanthrope, he headed for the hills
where for years he fed on grass and plants.
Only when afflicted with edema
would he come back down, asking the physicians
if they could bring drought after heavy rain.
When they said no, he smeared his trunk and face
with ox manure, and dried out in the sun.
He was discovered dead the following day,
his parched lips now two gates to the sahara,
the river in his veins not quite the same.