Rage against the dying of the light - Merry Christmas & Happy New Yera

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Rage, rage against the dying of the light...



Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light

* The greeting card is based on Yannis Stavrou's painting "Pomegranate in a Bowl"

60 new bookmarks based on Yannis Stavrou's paintings...

The new bookmarks from Yannis Stavrou's paintings

Landscape, portraits, marine art, still life, seascapes: some of the sixty bookmarks-based on Yannis Stavrou paintings - that have been edited by POLITEIA Bookshops for 2011 - 2012.

Copyright © POLITEIA, 1 Asklipiou Street, Athens, Greece, tel. +30 210 3600235

http://www.politeianet.gr

with usura hath no man a painted paradise...

Piero de la Franscesca (1422-1492)

They have brought whores for Eleusis

Corpses are set to banquet

at behest of usura...

Ezra Pound

Canto XLV -With Usura

With usura hath no man a house of good stone

each block cut smooth and well fitting

that design might cover their face,

with usura

hath no man a painted paradise on his church wall

harpes et luz

or where virgin receiveth message

and halo projects from incision,

with usura

seeth no man Gonzaga his heirs and his concubines

no picture is made to endure nor to live with

but it is made to sell and sell quickly

with usura, sin against nature,

is thy bread ever more of stale rags

is thy bread dry as paper,

with no mountain wheat, no strong flour

with usura the line grows thick

with usura is no clear demarcation

and no man can find site for his dwelling.

Stonecutter is kept from his tone

weaver is kept from his loom

WITH USURA

wool comes not to market

sheep bringeth no gain with usura

Usura is a murrain, usura

blunteth the needle in the maid’s hand

and stoppeth the spinner’s cunning. Pietro Lombardo

came not by usura

Duccio came not by usura

nor Pier della Francesca; Zuan Bellin’ not by usura

nor was ‘La Calunnia’ painted.

Came not by usura Angelico; came not Ambrogio Praedis,

Came no church of cut stone signed: Adamo me fecit.

Not by usura St. Trophime

Not by usura Saint Hilaire,

Usura rusteth the chisel

It rusteth the craft and the craftsman

It gnaweth the thread in the loom

None learneth to weave gold in her pattern;

Azure hath a canker by usura; cramoisi is unbroidered

Emerald findeth no Memling

Usura slayeth the child in the womb

It stayeth the young man’s courting

It hath brought palsey to bed, lyeth

between the young bride and her bridegroom

CONTRA NATURAM

They have brought whores for Eleusis

Corpses are set to banquet

at behest of usura.

Thou art as I, a bright sun fallen low...

Autumn through the poet's eyes...


Yannis Stavrou, Autumn, oil on canvas
(detail)


Charles Baudelaire

Sonnet of Autumn

They say to me, thy clear and crystal eyes:
"Why dost thou love me so, strange lover mine?"
Be sweet, be still! My heart and soul despise
All save that antique brute-like faith of thine;

And will not bare the secret of their shame
To thee whose hand soothes me to slumbers long,
Nor their black legend write for thee in flame!
Passion I hate, a spirit does me wrong.

Let us love gently. Love, from his retreat,
Ambushed and shadowy, bends his fatal bow,
And I too well his ancient arrows know:

Crime, horror, folly. O pale marguerite,
Thou art as I, a bright sun fallen low,
O my so white, my so cold Marguerite.


Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)

Sonnet d'automne

Ils me disent, tes yeux, clairs comme le cristal:
«Pour toi, bizarre amant, quel est donc mon mérite?»
— Sois charmante et tais-toi! Mon coeur, que tout irrite,
Excepté la candeur de l'antique animal,

Ne veut pas te montrer son secret infernal,
Berceuse dont la main aux longs sommeils m'invite,
Ni sa noire légende avec la flamme écrite.
Je hais la passion et l'esprit me fait mal!

Aimons-nous doucement. L'Amour dans sa guérite,
Ténébreux, embusqué, bande son arc fatal.
Je connais les engins de son vieil arsenal:

Crime, horreur et folie! — Ô pâle marguerite!
Comme moi n'es-tu pas un soleil automnal,
Ô ma si blanche, ô ma si froide Marguerite?

looking at the moon...

Yannis Stavrou, Moon Shine, Thessaloniki, oil on canvas

The clouds come and go,
providing a rest for all
the moon viewers...

Japanese Poetry, Haiku

Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)

A cuckoo cries
and through a thicket of bamboo
the late moon shines

None is travelling
Here along this way but I,
This autumn evening.

The first day of the year:
thoughts come - and there is loneliness;
the autumn dusk is here.

An old pond
A frog jumps in -
Splash!

Lightening -
Heron's cry
Stabs the darkness

Clouds come from time to time -
and bring to men a chance to rest
from looking at the moon.

In the cicada's cry
There's no sign that can foretell
How soon it must die.

Poverty's child -
he starts to grind the rice,
and gazes at the moon.

Won't you come and see
loneliness? Just one leaf
from the kiri tree.

Temple bells die out.
The fragrant blossoms remain.
A perfect evening!

Husking rice
a child squints up
to view the moon

A field of cotton--
as if the moon
had flowered.

The clouds come and go,
providing a rest for all
the moon viewers

From time to time
The clouds give rest
To the moon beholders..

Winter garden,
the moon thinned to a thread,
insects singing.

There is no sin except stupidity...

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation...


Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Oscar Wilde

Aphorisms

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.

There is no sin except stupidity.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.

Most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

An excellent man; he has no enemies; and none of his friends like him.

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.

Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.

Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everyone in good society holds exactly the same opinion.

Arguments are to be avoided: they are always vulgar and often convincing.

Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.

As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.

As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.

Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.

Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.

Biography lends to death a new terror.

By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.

Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.

Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to.

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.

A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.

A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.

A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction.

A poet can survive everything but a misprint.

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.

A true friend stabs you in the front.

A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.

Ah, well, then I suppose I shall have to die beyond my means.

Alas, I am dying beyond my means.

All art is quite useless.

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.

Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.

Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds.

Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.

To them it is I send my farewell cry...

Anna Akhamatova (1889-1966)
Portrait by Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin (1922)

Anna Akhmatova

Dedication

Before this sorrow mountains bow,
the vast river’s ceased to flow,
the ever-strong prison bolts
hold the ‘convict crews’ now,
abandoned to deathly longing.
For someone the sun glows red,
for someone the wind blows fresh –
but we know none of that, instead
we only hear the soldier’s tread,
keys scraping against our flesh.
Rising as though for early mass,
through the city of beasts we sped,
there met, breathless as the dead,
sun low, a mistier Neva. Far ahead,
hope singing still, as we passed.
Sentence given…tears pour out,
she thought she knew all separation,
in pain, blood driven from the heart,
as if she’s hurled to earth, apart,
yet walks…staggers…is in motion…
Where now my chance-met friends
of those two years satanic flight?
What Siberian storms do they resist,
and in what frosted lunar orb exist?
To them it is I send my farewell cry.

In my own land, I’m in a far domain...

I’m dying of thirst beside the fountain,
Hot as fire, and with chattering teeth:
In my own land, I’m in a far domain:
Near the flame, I shiver beyond belief:
Bare as a worm, dressed in a furry sheathe,
I smile in tears, wait without expectation...

François Villon (1431-1463)

Francois Villon

Ballade: Du Concours de Blois

I’m dying of thirst beside the fountain,
Hot as fire, and with chattering teeth:
In my own land, I’m in a far domain:
Near the flame, I shiver beyond belief:
Bare as a worm, dressed in a furry sheathe,
I smile in tears, wait without expectation:
Taking my comfort in sad desperation:
I rejoice, without pleasures, never a one:
Strong I am, without power or persuasion,
Welcomed gladly, and spurned by everyone.

Nothing is sure for me but what’s uncertain:
Obscure, whatever is plainly clear to see:
I’ve no doubt, except of everything certain:
Science is what happens accidentally:
I win it all, yet a loser I’m bound to be:
Saying: ‘God give you good even!’ at dawn,
I greatly fear I’m falling, when lying down:
I’ve plenty, yet I’ve not one possession,
I wait to inherit, yet I’m no heir I own,
Welcomed gladly, and spurned by everyone.

I never take care, yet I’ve taken great pain
To acquire some goods, but have none by me:
Who’s nice to me is one I hate: it’s plain,
And who speaks truth deals with me most falsely:
He’s my friend who can make me believe
A white swan is the blackest crow I’ve known:
Who thinks he’s power to help me, does me harm:
Lies, truth, to me are all one under the sun:
I remember all, have the wisdom of a stone,
Welcomed gladly, and spurned by everyone.

Merciful Prince, may it please you that I’ve shown
There’s much I know, yet without sense or reason:
I’m partial, yet I hold with all men, in common.
What more can I do? Redeem what I’ve in pawn,
Welcomed gladly, and spurned by everyone.

Ballade du concours de Blois

Je meurs de seuf auprès de la fontaine,
Chaud comme feu, et tremble dent à dent ;
En mon pays suis en terre lointaine ;
Lez un brasier frissonne tout ardent ;
Nu comme un ver, vêtu en président,
Je ris en pleurs et attends sans espoir ;
Confort reprends en triste désespoir ;
Je m'éjouis et n'ai plaisir aucun ;
Puissant je suis sans force et sans pouvoir,
Bien recueilli, débouté de chacun.

Rien ne m'est sûr que la chose incertaine ;
Obscur, fors ce qui est tout évident ;
Doute ne fais, fors en chose certaine ;
Science tiens à soudain accident ;
Je gagne tout et demeure perdant ;
Au point du jour dis : " Dieu vous doint bon soir ! "
Gisant envers, j'ai grand paour de choir ;
J'ai bien de quoi et si n'en ai pas un ;
Echoite attends et d'homme ne suis hoir,
Bien recueilli, débouté de chacun.

De rien n'ai soin, si mets toute ma peine
D'acquérir biens et n'y suis prétendant ;
Qui mieux me dit, c'est cil qui plus m'ataine,
Et qui plus vrai, lors plus me va bourdant ;
Mon ami est, qui me fait entendant
D'un cygne blanc que c'est un corbeau noir ;
Et qui me nuit, crois qu'il m'aide à pourvoir ;
Bourde, verté, aujourd'hui m'est tout un ;
Je retiens tout, rien ne sait concevoir,
Bien recueilli, débouté de chacun.

Prince clément, or vous plaise savoir
Que j'entends mout et n'ai sens ne savoir :
Partial suis, à toutes lois commun.
Que sais-je plus ? Quoi ? Les gages ravoir,
Bien recueilli, débouté de chacun.

No verse belongs to me...

Good poets pass away one day
not because they die
of heart failure or cancer
but because on their eyelids sprout
horrendous flowers...

Yannis Varveris, (1955-25/5/2011)

Yannis Varveris

My Head

No verse belongs to me. My friends operated them all on.
My upright friends Brassens and Ferre. And the others.
And this is no head, it’s hate.
And mum’s plastic lilies I laid at the Polytechnic gate.*
This is no head that doesn’t know a bow from an arrow.
Not even killing would be a pleasure
I wouldn’t know what weapon I used.
This is no head that smokes
strips of belly dancers
flesh and bones of ideas and wiles away the time.
So I took a chisel and gave it the works
fought the good fight at last
shod in shabby sandals, no socks, and resolute curly hair.
But still my verses are unreadable;
inside and out all my poems
are zebra-striped and I the warder.
As outside so inside I found
the mote of Sartre
in their eyes
and in my eyes I found the same wolf
suckling without consuming me.

What more can a poem need
than thread through the needle’s eye
• in fact at night my room is full of threads –
even Homer managed it, I muse;
but where’s the needle that will prick my languid temples?
*Alludes to the uprising of the students of the National Technical University in November 1973, which was quelled by the military junta.

Hostia

There’s the house.
Around, mum’s water plants
blossoms for the bosom.
In the freezer some jolly little snakes
enabling me to change tongue
each time I vanquish flesh.

We should visit living poets

We should visit living poets
especially if we happen to dwell in the same town
drop in on them from time to time
because as we spend our quiet lives
certain that they too are alive – though maybe forgotten –
we hear the sad news.

Good poets pass away one day
not because they die
of heart failure or cancer
but because on their eyelids sprout
horrendous flowers.

At first they delve in medical books
then they consult the optician
ask botanists and gardeners
science gives up
offers vague cautious words
passersby and neighbours cross themselves.

Thus the poets gradually withdraw
to the seclusion of their homes
listening to old records
writing little
less and less
mediocre stuff.
Meantime in this confinement
the horrendous flowers begin to wilt
and wither
and the poets no longer go out
not even to the nearby kiosk for cigarettes.
They sit shrunken by the fireplace
seeking answers from the fire
which eventually throws out a spark
first landing on the dry petals
then on the dry stems
all over the body
and the entire house
the surroundings
brighten for a single moment

and they are burnt to ashes.

(translated from Greek by Yannis Goumas)

Foolishness, error, sin, niggardliness...

Foolishness, error, sin, niggardliness,
Occupy our minds and work on our bodies...

Dedicated to our days and to the contemporary world...


Hieronymus Bosch, Christ carrying the cross (1450-1516)

Charles Baudelaire

To the Reader

(Translation By Eli Siegel)

Foolishness, error, sin, niggardliness,
Occupy our minds and work on our bodies,
And we feed our mild remorse,
As beggars nourish their vermin.

Our sins are insistent, our repentings are limp;
We pay ourselves richly for our admissions,
And we gaily go once more on the filthy path
Believing that by cheap fears we shall wash away all our sins.

On the pillow of evil it is Satan Trismegistus
Who soothes a long while our bewitched mind,
And the rich metal of our determination
Is made vapor by that learned chemist.

It is the Devil who holds the reins which make us go!
In repulsive objects we find something charming;
Each day we take one more step towards Hell-
Without being horrified-across darknesses that stink .

Like a beggarly sensualist who kisses and eats
The martyred breast of an ancient strumpet,
We steal where we may a furtive pleasure
Which we handle forcefully like an old orange.

Tight, swarming, like a million worms,
A population of Demons carries on in our brains,
And, when we breathe, Death into our lungs
Goes down, an invisible river, with thick complaints.

If rape, poison, the dagger, arson,
Have not as yet embroidered with their pleasing designs
The recurrent canvas of our pitiable destinies,
It is that our spirit, alas, is not brave enough.

But among the jackals, the panthers, the bitch-hounds,
The apes, the scorpions, the vultures, the serpents,
The monsters screeching, howling, grumbling, creeping,
In the infamous menagerie of our vices,

There is one uglier, wickeder, more shameless!
Although he makes no large gestures nor loud cries
He willingly would make rubbish of the earth
And with a yawn swallow the world;

He is Ennui!-His eye filled with an unwished-for tear,
He dreams of scaffolds while puffing at his hookah.
You know him, reader, this exquisite monster,
-Hypocrite reader,-my likeness,-my brother!

About the known Universe...

The Known Universe takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang.

Every star, planet, and quasar seen in the film is possible because of the world's most complete four-dimensional map of the universe, the Digital Universe Atlas that is maintained and updated by astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History. The new film, created by the Museum, is part of an exhibition, Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe, at the Rubin Museum of Art in Manhattan through May 2010.

Data: Digital Universe, American Museum of Natural History
http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/universe/

Visualization Software: Uniview by SCISS

Director: Carter Emmart
Curator: Ben R. Oppenheimer
Producer: Michael Hoffman
Executive Producer: Ro Kinzler
Co-Executive Producer: Martin Brauen
Manager, Digital Universe Atlas: Brian Abbott

Music: Suke Cerulo

For more information visit http://www.amnh.org

I am thinking of the stars that would claim this privilege...

Alexandros Baras
(1906-1990)


THE CLEOPATRA, THE SEMIRAMIS AND THE THEODORA

Once every week,
on a given day,
and always at the same hour,
three handsome ships,
the Cleopatra, the Semiramis, and the Theodora,
leave their berth
at nine o’clock
for Piraeus always,
for Brindisi and for Trieste
always.

Without manoeuvres or fuss
or hesitation
or unnecessary blowing on the whistle,
they put out to sea,
the Cleopatra, the Semiramis, and the Theodora,
like certain well-bred people
who take leave of their hosts
without uncouth and superfluous
handshaking.

They leave their berth
at nine o’clock,
for Piraeus always,
for Brindisi and for Trieste
always – rain or shine.
They sail
to daub the blue waters
of the Aegean and the Mediterranean

with smoke.
They sail to cast their lights
like topazes on the sea
at night.
They sail
laden with passengers and luggage….

The Cleopatra, the Semiramis, and the Theodora,
for years now
on the same route,
arriving on the same day
sailing at the same hour.

They resemble white-collar workers
who have become such time machines
that an office door
might come tumbling down
if they were to miss work
even for a single day.

(If the route is always the same
what if it is across an entire Mediterranean
or from one house to another neighbourhood?)
The Cleopatra, the Semiramis, and the Theodora
for a long time now and for many years
have felt the tyranny of boredom,
ploughing always the same route,
mooring always at the same ports.

If I were a Captain,
Yes – si j’etais roit! –
if I were a Captain
on the Cleopatra, the Semiramis, the Theodora,
if I were a Captain
with four gold stripes,
abandoned on this same route

year after year,
on a moonlit night,
in the middle of the sea,
I would climb to the bridge deck
and while the music from the first class saloon
played on,
with my best uniform,
my gold stripes
and shiny decorations,
I would trace a most perfect curve
from the bridge deck
into the water,
gold braid and all,
like a shooting star,
like a hero of inexplicable death.

ANN ARBOR REVIEW (USA), No. 10/11, 1970.
MUNDUS ARTIUM (USA), Vol. V, No. 3, 1972.
NEW GREECE, Athens, 1975.
HELLENIC QUARTERLY (Athens), No. 6, Autumn 2000.

THREE LAMPS

Three powerful lamps – the three together
produce a thousand candlepower of blinding light –
placed in the vertices
of an isosceles triangle
which forms between them on the ceiling
of this fashionable café – the only one
that will put up with us night after night –

What were we saying? – three powerful lamps
let out certain insolent
electric light cries
as they converse with each other.
(Now how three lamps can talk,
how they can cry out
without uttering a single sound,
only I and my friends
who sit with me
know it,
that is why we are such close
and inseparable friends at night.)

Three lamps… three cries….
Usually when we speak of cries
the term “sky-high” may be applied.
But here we cannot use it.
They cannot reach sky-high
since the impenetrable ceiling,
a concrete barrier, prevents them
from rising skywards,
and so they break against it
and fall on our senses
with immense cruelty!

Again, even if there were no question
of the term’s inadequacy,
even if these three cursed lamps
shone in the open air,
their cries would still not reach sky-high:

I am thinking of the stars
that would claim this privilege,
especially if it were July
• a beautiful, clear July night –
I am thinking of the stars’ all-powerful
illuminating rivalry,
the stars that aeons and aeons ago
formed a Trust,
the largest Trust, of light.

CAVE (New Zealand), No. 6. No date printed.

Happy Easter!

Greek Easter & Greek poets...


Odysseus Elytis (1911-1996)

Odysseus Elytis

Drinking the sun of Corinth

Drinking the sun of Corinth
Reading the marble ruins
Striding across vineyards and seas
Sighting along the harpoon
A votive fish that slips away
I found the leaves that the sun’s psalm memorizes
The living land that passion joys in opening.

I drink water, cut fruit,
Thrust my hand into the wind’s foliage
The lemon trees water the summer pollen
The green birds tear my dreams
I leave with a glance
A wide glance in which the world is recreated
Beautiful from the beginning to the dimensions of the heart!

The tears of rivers flow always...

Andreas Embirikos

Insight of Morning Hours

For Yves Tanguy

Natural inclination
The dove of our heartbeat spreads it around
The tears of rivers flow always
They are tears of unconcealable happiness
They are lakes where snow-white storks lived long ago
No south-westerly settles in the sugar-canes
And even if at a gunshot the clouds lift
And rise into thinner layers
Where the corvettes spread the sails
Down on the earth a shadow searches for its lost body
The weather in the valley which stole it from her
Thickens the mists that hide it
The lake’s treasures are restless, their fur rises
Seaweed and elemental matter stir in the depths
A jellyfish weeps for yesterday’s transparency
Which will return with the first fishing-light
Before winter sets in
Before anyone thinks of lighting the beacon
Under which a blonde woman considers her future
The lighthouse-keeper bends to her lips and kisses them
As mariners kiss their symplegades.


Andreas Embirikos (1901-1975)

The Caryatids

For Yiorgos Gounaropoulos

O the breasts of youth
O the pallid waters of the fig-eaters
The cobblestones echo with the steps of morning people
Thicket of strength with your scarlet trees
Youth senses your significance
And springs up already at your edges
Feathery tresses frisk between the breasts of young girls
Who walk half-naked through your narrow streets
Their curls more lovely than those of Absalom
Amber drips between the locks
And the dark-haired ones hold ebony leaves
Ferrets sniff at their steps
The forest responds
The forest is a swarm of ants with lance-bearing legions
Here even the skylarks are stripping off their shadows
The railways cannot be heard
The day sighs
One of the her young daughters is playing with her breasts
No slap will do any good
A deer passes by holding in its mouth
The three cherries it found between the breasts of youth
The evening here is warm
The trees wrap themselves in their quietude
Now and then rocks of silence fall slowly into the clearing
Like light before it turns to day.

Our art: the ego’s most horrible disguise...

I always climb towards horror with greasy boots,
starving now from flame
fluently secular
fluently
in tears...


Human Figures by Prehistoric Artists
(Algeria, Tassili N'Ajjer)

Nikos Karouzos

Dross of Immortality

I always climb towards horror with greasy boots,
starving now from flame
fluently secular
fluently
in tears
eternal chorographer of
my diction
and unquestioned
garment.
Badly spent illumination in
mauve and other delays,
of an ignoble
horizon
barking the creed of the dog,
or an unbecominghallucinatory
Universe,
pharaonic queen through
mathematical piousness.
I am what’s
involuntary of existence
my physique is not a flower, it
is rawness,
I am disposed toward a thousand years
even if I fall eternally on bloody seconds;
the winds have pointed me out.

May 1989


Nikos Karouzos (1926-1990)

I Penetrated Matter Howling

Two seas pursue me: life and death two currents which, damn
them, are in my heart . . .
I am trying to find in my dog-
drunk head
/second possessive pronoun/intelligence – can’t be found. I didn’t petrify anything. Lets play the winds let’s sweetly
play the damned.
What a sensuously-seasoned
infant the poem and poor Jesus
wearing orange stained underwear is hung up every
year in spring.
Our art: the ego’s most
horrible disguise.

Sorrow & sympathy for Japan...

Hoping for the quickest possible recovery in Japan...

Dedicated to Japanes friends...

From time to time

The clouds give rest

To the moon beholders...

Katsushika Hokusai, The Great Wave of Kanagawa, print (1826-1833)

Japanese Haiku

Matsuo Basho
(1644-1694

Moonlight slants through

The vast bamboo grove:

A cuckoo cries


Ah, summer grasses!

All that remains

Of the warriors dreams.


Along this road

Goes no one;

This autumn evening.


From time to time

The clouds give rest

To the moon beholders..


The butterfly is perfuming

It's wings in the scent

as my unfading nightlight in memory...

When you reach that other world, don't become a cloud,
don't become a cloud, and the bitter star of dawn,
so that your mother knows you, waiting at her door...


Nikos Gatsos (1911-1992)

Nikos Gatsos

Rosewater

When you reach that other world, don't become a cloud,
don't become a cloud, and the bitter star of dawn,
so that your mother knows you, waiting at her door.
Take a wand of willow, a root of rosemary,
a root of rosemary, and be a moonlit coolness
falling in the midnight in your thirsting courtyard.
I gave you rosewater to drink, you gave me poison,
eaglet of the frost, hawk of the desert.

Dark Mother

I brought you up with soil and water
a young swallow to be and yet a wild creature,
to have you as my alphabet-book in the times
and as my unfading nightlight in memory.

But you, looking for the source of dreams
near the Virgin Mary,
developed wings, refused the land
our dark, our first mother.

Oh, flowers and moss, Oh, enemy of death...

The sad moon in summer, the dragging anchor, took your dreams, hills, trees, light, waters, darkness, not dim thoughts but truths, severed from the mind that suddenly decided, time and all future evil...


Salvatore Quasimodo (1901-1968)

Salavatore Quasimodo

Enemy of Death

You should not have
ripped out your image
taken from us, from the world,
a portion of beauty.
What can we do
we enemies of death,
bent to your feet of rose,
your breast of violet?
Not a word, not a scrap
of your last day, a No
to earth’s things, a No
to our dull human record.
The sad moon in summer,
the dragging anchor, took
your dreams, hills, trees,
light, waters, darkness,
not dim thoughts but truths,
severed from the mind
that suddenly decided,
time and all future evil.
Now you are shut
behind heavy doors
enemy of death.


Who cries?
You have blown out beauty
with a breath, torn her,
dealt her the death-wound,
without a tear
for her insensate shadow’s
spreading over us.
Destroyed solitude,
and beauty, failed.
You have signalled
into the dark,
inscribed your name in air,
your No
to everything that crowds here
and beyond the wind.
I know what you were
looking for in your new dress.
I understand the unanswered question.
Neither for you nor us, a reply.
Oh, flowers and moss,
Oh, enemy of death.

I am my own landscape...

I am my own landscape,
I watch myself journey - Various, mobile, and alone.
Here where I am I can’t feel myself...


Fernando Pessôa (1888-1935)

Fernando Pessoa

I don’t know how many souls I have

I don’t know how many souls I have.
I’ve changed at every moment.
I always feel like a stranger.
I’ve never seen or found myself.
From being so much, I have only soul.
A man who has soul has no calm.
A man who sees is just what he sees.
A man who feels is not who he is.

Attentive to what I am and see,
I become them and stop being I.
Each of my dreams and each desire
Belongs to whoever had it, not me.
I am my own landscape,
I watch myself journey -
Various, mobile, and alone.
Here where I am I can’t feel myself.

That’s why I read, as a stranger,
My being as if it were pages.
Not knowing what will come
And forgetting what has passed,
I note in the margin of my reading
What I thought I felt.
Rereading, I wonder: “Was that me?”
God knows, because he wrote it.

Não sei quantas almas tenho

Não sei quantas almas tenho.
Cada momento mudei.
Continuamente me estranho.
Nunca me vi nem achei.
De tanto ser, só tenho alma.
Quem tem alma não tem calma.
Quem vê é só o que vê.
Quem sente não é quem é.

Atento ao que sou e vejo,
Torno-me eles e não eu.
Cada meu sonho ou desejo,
É do que nasce, e não meu.
Sou minha própria paisagem,
Assisto à minha passagem,
Diverso, móbil e só.
Não sei sentir-me onde estou.

Por isso, alheio, vou lendo
Como páginas, meu ser.
O que segue não prevendo,
O que passou a esquecer.
Noto à margem do que li
O que julguei que senti.
Releio e digo, «Fui eu?»
Deus sabe, porque o escreveu.

Una casa portuguesa, Amalia Rodrigues

Only memories waking...

Yannis Stavrou, Four Red Ships, oil on canvas

Only memories waking
That sleep so light a sleep...

Sarah Teasdale

It is not a Word

It is not a word spoken,
Few words are said;
Nor even a look of the eyes
Nor a bend of the head,

But only a hush of the heart
That has too much to keep,
Only memories waking
That sleep so light a sleep.

Only in Sleep

Only in sleep I see their faces,
Children I played with when I was a child,
Louise comes back with her brown hair braided,
Annie with ringlets warm and wild.

Only in sleep Time is forgotten --
What may have come to them, who can know?
Yet we played last night as long ago,
And the doll-house stood at the turn of the stair.

The years had not sharpened their smooth round faces,
I met their eyes and found them mild --
Do they, too, dream of me, I wonder,
And for them am I too a child?

After the first death, there is no other...

Paul Gauguin, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? / oil on canvas

Dylan Thomas

A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London

Never until the mankind making
Bird beast and flower
Fathering and all humbling darkness
Tells with silence the last light breaking
And the still hour
Is come of the sea tumbling in harness

And I must enter again the round
Zion of the water bead
And the synagogue of the ear of corn
Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound
Or sow my salt seed
In the least valley of sackcloth to mourn

The majesty and burning of the child's death.
I shall not murder
The mankind of her going with a grave truth
Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath
With any further
Elegy of innocence and youth.

Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter,
Robed in the long friends,
The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,
Secret by the unmourning water
Of the riding Thames.
After the first death, there is no other.

The streets are garlanded and the palms advance...

Apollinaire's Calligramme

Guillaume Apollinaire

One Evening

(Alcools: Un Soir)

An eagle descends from this sky white with archangels

And you sustain me

Let them tremble a long while all these lamps

Pray pray for me

The city’s metallic and it’s the only star

Drowned in your blue eyes

When the tramways run spurting pale fire

Over the twittering birds

And all that trembles in your eyes of my dreams

That a lonely man drinks

Under flames of gas red like a false dawn

O clothed your arm is lifted

See the speaker stick his tongue out at the listeners

A phantom has committed suicide

The apostle of the fig-tree hangs and slowly rots

Let us play this love out then to the end

Bells with clear chimes announce your birth

See

The streets are garlanded and the palms advance

Towards thee

Guillame Apollinaire (1880-1918)

Un Soir

Un aigle descendit de ce ciel blanc d'archanges
Et vous soutenez-moi
Laisserez-vous trembler longtemps toutes ces lampes
Priez priez pour moi La ville est métallique et c'est la seule étoile
Noyée dans tes yeux bleus
Quand les tramways roulaient jaillissaient des feux pâles
Sur des oiseaux galeux Et tout ce qui tremblait dans tes yeux de mes songes
Qu'un seul homme buvait
Sous les feux de gaz roux comme la fausse oronge
O vêtue ton bras se lovait Vois l'histrion tire la langue aux attentives
Un fantôme s'est suicidé
L'apôtre au figuier pend et lentement salive
Jouons donc cet amour aux dés Des cloches aux sons clairs annonçaient ta naissance
Vois
Les chemins sont fleuris et les palmes s'avancent
Vers toi

The Shock Doctrine...

In THE SHOCK DOCTRINE, Naomi Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America’s “free market” policies have come to dominate the world-- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.



At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq’s civil war, a new law is unveiled that would allow Shell and BP to claim the country’s vast oil reserves…. Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly out-sources the running of the “War on Terror” to Halliburton and Blackwater…. After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts.... New Orleans’s residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be reopened…. These events are examples of “the shock doctrine”: using the public’s disorientation following massive collective shocks – wars, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters -- to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy. Sometimes, when the first two shocks don’t succeed in wiping out resistance, a third shock is employed: the electrode in the prison cell or the Taser gun on the streets.

Based on breakthrough historical research and four years of on-the-ground reporting in disaster zones, The Shock Doctrine vividly shows how disaster capitalism – the rapid-fire corporate reengineering of societies still reeling from shock – did not begin with September 11, 2001. The book traces its origins back fifty years, to the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman, which produced many of the leading neo-conservative and neo-liberal thinkers whose influence is still profound in Washington today. New, surprising connections are drawn between economic policy, “shock and awe” warfare and covert CIA-funded experiments in electroshock and sensory deprivation in the 1950s, research that helped write the torture manuals used today in Guantanamo Bay.

The Shock Doctrine follows the application of these ideas through our contemporary history, showing in riveting detail how well-known events of the recent past have been deliberate, active theatres for the shock doctrine, among them: Pinochet’s coup in Chile in 1973, the Falklands War in 1982, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Asian Financial crisis in 1997 and Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

A man's worth has its season, like fruit...

Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them...

About human nature - one of the greatest minds


François VI duke de La Rochefoucauld
(1613-1680)

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Aphorisms

(some of his 504 aphorisms found in his book "Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales")

It is not enough to have great qualities; We should also have the management of them.

It is not in the power of even the most crafty dissimulation to conceal love long, where it really is, nor to counterfeit it long where it is not.

It is often laziness and timidity that keep us within our duty while virtue gets all the credit.

It is with an old love as it is with old age a man lives to all the miseries, but is dead to all the pleasures.

It is with true love as it is with ghosts; everyone talks about it, but few have seen it.

It takes nearly as much ability to know how to profit by good advice as to know how to act for one's self.

It's easier to be wise for others than for ourselves.

It's the height of folly to want to be the only wise one.

Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding.

Jealously is always born with love but it does not die with it.

Jealousy contains more of self-love than of love.

Jealousy is bred in doubts. When those doubts change into certainties, then the passion either ceases or turns absolute madness.

Jealousy is not so much the love of another as the love of ourselves.

Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty.

Jealousy springs more from love of self than from love of another.

Love can no more continue without a constant motion than fire can; and when once you take hope and fear away, you take from it its very life and being.

Love often leads on to ambition, but seldom does one return from ambition to love.

Many men are contemptuous of riches; few can give them away.

Men give away nothing so liberally as their advice.

Men often pass from love to ambition, but they seldom come back again from ambition to love.

A great many men's gratitude is nothing but a secret desire to hook in more valuable kindnesses hereafter.

A man is sometimes as different from himself as he is from others.

A man's worth has its season, like fruit.

A refusal of praise is a desire to be praised twice.

A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire.

A wise man thinks it more advantageous not to join the battle than to win.

A work can become modern only if it is first postmodern. Postmodernism thus understood is not modernism at its end but in the nascent state, and this state is constant.

Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.

All the passions make us commit faults; love makes us commit the most ridiculous ones.

As great minds have the faculty of saying a great deal in a few words, so lesser minds have a talent of talking much, and saying nothing.

As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing.

As one grows older, one becomes wiser and more foolish.

Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy they are, who already possess it.

Being a blockhead is sometimes the best security against being cheated by a man of wit.

Conceit causes more conversation than wit.

Confidence contributes more to conversation than wit.

Decency is the least of all laws, but yet it is the law which is most strictly observed.

Every one speaks well of his own heart, but no one dares speak well of his own mind.

Everyone complains of his memory, and nobody complains of his judgment.

Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them.

No, I regret nothing, all I regret is having been born...

Samuel Beckett (1906-1989)

No, I regret nothing, all I regret is having been born, dying is such a long tiresome business I always found...

Samuel Beckett

Aphorisms

All I know is what the words know, and dead things, and that makes a handsome little sum, with a beginning and a middle and an end, as in the well-built phrase and the long sonata of the dead.

Birth was the death of him.

Do we mean love, when we say love?

Dublin university contains the cream of Ireland: Rich and thick.

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.

Go on failing. Go on. Only next time, try to fail better.

Habit is a great deadener.

I can't go on. I'll go on.

I have my faults, but changing my tune is not one of them.

I shall state silences more competently than ever a better man spangled the butterflies of vertigo.

I write about myself with the same pencil and in the same exercise book as about him. It is no longer I, but another whose life is just beginning.

If I had the use of my body, I would throw it out the window.

If you do not love me I shall not be loved If I do not love you I shall not love.

In the landscape of extinction, precision is next to godliness.

It is right that he too should have his little chronicle, his memories, his reason, and be able to recognize the good in the bad, the bad in the worst, and so grow gently old down all the unchanging days, and die one day like any other day, only shorter.

James Joyce was a synthesizer, trying to bring in as much as he could. I am an analyzer, trying to leave out as much as I can.

Just under the surface I shall be, all together at first, then separate and drift, through all the earth and perhaps in the end through a cliff into the sea, something of me. A ton of worms in an acre, that is a wonderful thought, a ton of worms, I believe it.

Let me go to hell, that's all I ask, and go on cursing them there, and them look down and hear me, that might take some of the shine off their bliss.

No, I regret nothing, all I regret is having been born, dying is such a long tiresome business I always found.

Comments & Greek artists: Papadiamantis, the greatest Greek author...

Alexandros Papadiamantis
(March 4, 1851 - January 3, 1911)

The greatest Greek writer of the 19th century - The so called Greek Dostoyefski...

1oo years from his death


Alexandros Papadiamantis (1851-1911)

The following text is written by his translaton from Greek Irene Voulgaris

Alexandros Papadiamantis the most compassionate and authentic Greek author

“Papadiamantis” (“Papa” meaning priest and “Diamantis” being the colloquial version of “Adamantios”), the way his father, Diamantis, was addressed, was the pen name the writer chose. Young Alexandros, or “Alekos” as his father called him, was raised in a poor family in Skiathos, a small island in the Aegean Sea, with the pure orthodox Christian spirit and “fear of God”. He was born in 1851 to Adamantios Emmanuel, a poor parson, a descendant of priests and seamen, and Angeliki Moraitidi who came from an aristocratic family of the island. He was one of nine children of whom two died very young. In those times, priests did not receive monthly salaries and pensions from the Greek State, so his father had to make a living by farming.
From an early age Papadiamantis showed his love for knowledge and his unique empathy. His longing for higher studies led him to leave his island in pursuit of a proper education and a career in literature in Athens. His constant economic difficulties however, did not allow him to complete his formal studies for he had to work to support himself. Throughout his life he kept returning to his beloved island whenever he could no longer stand the affectation of manners and the vanity of city life. There, he wrote some of his masterpieces and his quiet spirit rested for a while close to the translucent, sparkling emerald-blue sea, the “flaxen-haired shepherds” and his own kin, before resuming his solitary life in the capital.

In spite of the enormous adversities he faced, or perhaps because of them, he persevered and educated himself by auditing lectures of his choice at the School of Philosophy of the University of Athens and by teaching himself English and French. It is no exaggeration to say that Papadiamantis educated himself attaining a higher level of understanding of Greek literature and philosophy from Homer and Plato to his contemporaries, of patristic and literary works of the Christian Orthodox Church, of history and politics than that of his lecturers and professors at the University. A lover of reading from the original, he devoured centuries of notable works and his sharp intellect did not compromise whenever grave issues threatening his values arose, to the point of publicly criticizing established professors and theologians.

At the beginning he worked as a private tutor and a newspaper and magazine contributor and then also as a translator. Being an ardent lover of literature soon he immersed deeply into reading works of great authors of his time, in English and French such as Rudyard Kipling, Mark Twain, Emile Zola, William Blake, Alphonse Daudet and Guy de Maupassant. His knowledge of these foreign languages improved so rapidly that soon he started translating English, French and American authors into Greek for magazines and journals where his wonderful translations were published, along with his own works, in instalments.

With what he earned, the writer could have lived decently. Nevertheless, he barely managed to pay for his room's rent or for his meager meals at a tavern, as he used to give most of his money to the needy. He hardly ever bought new shoes or clothes, partly justifying, regarding his appearance, the fact that his acquaintances referred to him as “a monk living in the world”. Nevertheless, this is precisely what has set him apart from other writers; for Papadiamantis was a man who felt the pain of those mourning, the hunger and the bitter cold of the poor, the longing of the immigrant to return home, the despair of the deserted wife, the suffering and helplessness of the poor widows and orphans, the ways of those who entertain evil thoughts. He lived his stories and his stories contain this stark reality, in a way few stories ever do. In this respect, Alexandros Papadiamantis is for Greece what Charles Dickens is for Britain. The main difference between the two great writers is, apart from the fact that Dickens’s childhood was much more painful than Papadiamantis’s, that while Dickens got married, had a big family, made a fortune out of his writing, was highly appraised by his contemporaries on both sides of the Atlantic and enjoyed publicity, Papadiamantis remained a single, lonely, poor man, despised by most of his peers and avoided being in the public eye at all costs.

His father hoped that he would become a high school teacher and that he would make some money to help his four sisters get a dowry so that they would get married; a young girl was not considered an eligible wife in those times, unless she had a dowry. He never married himself; neither did he have any relationship with any women. He led a secluded, spartan life devoted to writing, to translating, and to singing psalms as a “chanter on the right” (the one on the left was his cousin Alexandros Moraitides, also a writer) in the chapel of St Elisseos in Plaka, the old district of Athens. Papa-Nicolas Planas was the priest there then; the legendary, loving shepherd of humble attitude who came from another Aegean island, Naxos, and was canonized by the Christian Orthodox Church in the last decade of the 20th century. Like the monks on the Holy Mountain where Papadiamantis had spent some months with a friend who became a monk and like Papa Nicolas, the writer never showed off but preferred to remain unnoticed. He even shunned publicity when recognition came a little before his death. Such was the ascetic, humble spirit and life of this extraordinary literary figure and such was the place he frequented.
Although his incredibly authentic, lyrical and soul piercing writing remains hitherto, almost a hundred years after his passing away, unsurpassed, and even though scholars have only recently discovered the equally unparalleled beauty of his literary translations, and lectures and films and events dedicated to his memory and to his works abound all over Greece, his talent was not recognized by the majority of the prominent literary critics of his time. He was despised by most of the established literary figures among his contemporaries, who have already been forgotten, for although he chose to write in their language, the language of the upper class and of the aristocracy, the “katharevousa”, his themes dealt primarily with the outcasts of the civilized society, with the poor, with the badly hit by fate widows and hungry orphans, with evil witches and saints, with the passionate beauty of the sea and of the rural countryside, with the mundane struggle of the unprivileged creatures to survive in the midst of disease, death, poverty and social exploitation and exclusion. Thus, the only ones who complimented his works in his lifetime were his fellow-journalists and the “demotikistes”, the writers who wrote in the people's spoken language, the “demotic”. “Demotikistes” chose to write in this version of Greek so that their works could reach the uneducated people who did not understand and could not afford to learn “katharevousa”. They felt close to Papadiamantis spiritually, but they were separated from him by their different linguistic choice as he only wrote the dialogues in “demotic” but used a very rich and eloquent “katharevousa” for the rest of his stories. Among those few who had publicly recognized that his works were of a rare literary, human and moral value as they reflected his living, compassionate spirit and his love for the poor and unjustly suffering, were the distinguished and esteemed poet and critic Kostis Palamas and his friend, the publisher of the newspaper "Akropolis", Vlasios Gabrielidis. The latter wrote about Papadiamantis among other things:

“He is not an ordinary storyteller; he is a spiritual and moral laborer who fights for progress, for awareness and for justice...”

However, after his death in 1911 of pneumonia, he was unanimously acclaimed as the best Greek author modern Greece had offered, as “the Saint of Greek Letters!” Some critics even went so far as to claim that it would be difficult for next generations to produce an author of the same or an even better caliber. The present reality of the beginning of the new millennium has exceeded their prediction; no Greek writer has come close to the deeply human, and nature loving power of his works, or to his rich, uniquely expressive language, let alone equals it.
Papadiamantis wrote about two hundred short stories and about fifty studies and articles. He also wrote three novelettes, “The Murderess”, which has been translated into many languages, “Christos Milionis”, and the “Rosy Seashores”. He also wrote three novels, “The Emigrant”, “The Merchants of the Nations” and “The Gypsy Girl”. Some of his works have been turned into films.

After his death and the subsequent sudden awareness of the critics regarding the merit of his literary work, his stories were painstakingly collected from thousands of newspaper and magazine issues and they were bound in volumes and so were his novels. After all his works were published in multi-volume editions, the critics were astonished not only by the quality but also by the quantity of his work. Scholars are still studying his lesser known stories, discovering unknown ones and their social and historical settings. Their latest discovery is a large number of anonymous translations which must be his; the date, the language, and the expressive and stylistic choices reveal the identity of the translator.
A
part from prose, Papadiamantis also wrote poems. From the time he was a little boy he occasionally resorted to putting his feelings to paper in verse and he has thus left us some beautiful poems in which so many feelings, experiences and reveries are expressed so eloquently in so few words, that one marvels at the combination! Again, his poetry was underestimated by his contemporaries, but now this hidden treasure has been found and taken out of its trunk by some amateur singers who have turned them into beautiful ballads. Here is one of them:

‘night of suffering’

When my poor eyes
will you close in silence,
offering sleep an’ bitter rest
to me…

Hearken how the nightingale
has crouched in solitude,
listen, listen to the owlet
ending its dirge…

And the stars, withered
lilies of God,
keep turning off an’ falling down
from heavenly lowlands…

And the fishing lamp’s gone
somewhere in the bleak haven,
glimmering the sea’s depths an’
being mirrored on the shore.

(Translated by Irene Voulgaris)



Click the above image to read Papadiamantis short story
The Demons in the Ravine

Comments & Greek artists, painters: And not just for myself I pray to Lord, But for them all, who stood in that line...

Not under foreign skies protection Or saving wings of alien birth – I was then there – with whole my nation – There, where my nation, alas! was.

Anna Akmatova

Among the greatest poets of the 20th century...

(from)
Requiem

Instead of a Preface

In the awful days of the Yezhovschina I passed seventeen months in the outer waiting line of the prison visitors in Leningrad. Once, somebody ‘identified’ me there. Then a woman, standing behind me in the line, which, of course, never heard my name, waked up from the torpor, typical for us all there, and asked me, whispering into my ear (all spoke only in a whisper there):
“And can you describe this?”
And I answered:
“Yes, I can.”
Then the weak similarity of a smile glided over that, what had once been her face.

April 1, 1957; Leningrad


Anna Akmatova (1889-1966)

Dedication

The high crags decline before this woe,
The great river does not flow ahead,
But they’re strong – the locks of a jail, stone,
And behind them – the cells, dark and low,
And the deadly pine is spread.
For some one, somewhere, a fresh wind blows,
For some one, somewhere, wakes up a dawn –
We don’t know, we’re the same here always,
We just hear the key’s squalls, morose,
And the sentry’s heavy step alone;
Got up early, as for Mass by Easter,
Walked the empty capital along
To create the half-dead peoples’ throng.
The sun downed, the Neva got mister,
But our hope sang afar its song.
There’s a sentence… In a trice tears flow…
Now separated, cut from us,
As if they’d pulled out her heart and thrown
Or pushed down her on a street stone –
But she goes… Reels… Alone at once.
Where are now friends unwilling those,
Those friends of my two years, brute?
What they see in the Siberian snows,
In a circle of the moon, exposed?
To them I send my farewell salute.


Epilogue

I

I’ve known how, at once, shrink back the faces,
How fear peeps up from under the eyelids,
How suffering creates the scriptural pages
On the pale cheeks its cruel reigning midst,
How the shining raven or fair ringlet
At once is covered by the silver dust,
And a smile slackens on the lips, obedient,
And deathly fear in the dry snicker rustles.
And not just for myself I pray to Lord,
But for them all, who stood in that line, hardest,
In a summer heat and in a winter cold,
Under the wall, so red and so sightless.