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)