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Lyssa
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Lyssa

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Greek Poems Empty
PostSubject: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyWed Feb 20, 2013 7:07 am

From my fav. Greek poet, Odysseas Elytis


GIFT SILVER POEM

I know that all this is worthless and that the language
I speak doesn't have an alphabet

Since the sun and the waves are a syllabic script
which can be deciphered only in the years of sorrow and exile

And the motherland a fresco with successive overlays
frankish or slavic which, should you try to restore,
you are immediately sent to prison and
held responsible

To a crowd of foreign Powers always through
the intervention of your own

As it happens for the disasters

But let's imagine that in an old days' threshing-floor
which might be in an apartment-complex children
are playing and whoever loses

Should, according to the rules, tell the others
and give them a truth

Then everyone ends up holding in his
hand a small

Gift, silver poem.



_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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Lyssa
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Lyssa

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Greek Poems Empty
PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyWed Feb 20, 2013 7:07 am

DEATH AND RESURRECTION
OF CONSTANTINOS PALAEOLOGOS

by
Odysseas Elytis

I

As he stood there erect before the Gate
and impregnable in his sorrow

Far from the world where his spirit sought
to bring Paradise to his measure
And harder even than stone
for no one had ever looked
on him tenderly - at times his crooked teeth
whitened strangely

And as he passed by with his gaze a little
beyond mankind and from them all
extracted One who smiled on him
The Real one
Whom death could never seize

He took care to pronounce the word
sea clearly that all the dolphins
within it might shine
And the desolation so great it might
contain all of God
and every waterdrop ascending steadfastly toward
the sun

As a young man he had seen gold glittering
and gleaming on the shoulders of the great
And one night
he remembers
during a great storm the neck of the sea
roared so it turned murky
but he would not submit to it

The world's an oppressive place to live through
yet with a little pride it's worth it.

II

Dear God what now
Who had to battle with thousands
and not only his loneliness
Who?
He who knew with a single word
how to slake the thirst of entire worlds
What?

From whom they had taken everything
And his sandals with their criss-crossed
straps and his pointed trident
and the wall he mounted every afternoon like
an unruly and pitching boat
to hold the reigns against the weather

And a handful of vervain
which he had rubbed on a girl's cheek
at midnight
to kiss her
(how the waters of the moon gurled
on the stone steps three cliff-lengths
above the sea...)

Noon out of night
And not one person by his side
Only his faithful words that mingled
all their colors to leave in his hand
a lance of white light

And opposite
along the whole wall's length
a host of heads poured in plaster
as far as his eyes could see

"Noon out of night - all life a radiance!"
he shouted and rushed into the horde
dragging behind him an endless golden line

And at once he felt
the final pallor
overmastering him
as it hastened from afar.

III

Now
as the sun's wheel turned more and more swiftly
the courtyards plunged into winter and once
again emerged red from the geranium

And the small cool domes
like blue medusae
reached each time higher to the silverwork
the wind so delicately worked as a painting
for other times more distant

Virgin maidens
their breasts glowing a summer dawn
brought him branches of fresh palm leaves
and those of the myrtle uprooted
from the depths of the sea

Dripping iodine
While under his feet he heard
the prows of black ships
sucked into the great whirlpool
the ancient and smoked seacraft
from which still erect with riveted gaze
the Mothers of God stood rebuking

Horses overturned on dumpheaps
a rabble of buildings large and small
debris and dust flaming in the air

And there lying prone
always with an unbroken word
between his teeth
Himself
the last of the Hellenes!

_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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Lyssa
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Lyssa

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PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyWed Feb 20, 2013 7:08 am

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.

Nikos Gkatsos, "Dark Mother"

_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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Lyssa
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Lyssa

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Greek Poems Empty
PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyWed Feb 20, 2013 7:08 am

POSEIDONIANS


"The Poseidonians forgot the Greek language
after so many centuries of mingling
with Tyrrhenians, Latins, and other foreigners.
The only thing surviving from their ancestors
was a Greek festival, with beautiful rites,
with lyres and flutes, contests and wreaths.
And it was their habit toward the festival's end
to tell each other about their ancient customs
and once again to speak Greek names
that only few of them still recognized.
And so their festival always had a melancholy ending
because they remebered that they too were Greeks,
they too once upon a time were citizens of Magna Graecia;
and how low they'd fallen now, what they'd become,
living and speaking like barbarians,
cut off so disastrously from the Greek way of life."

C. Cavafy

_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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Lyssa
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Lyssa

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Greek Poems Empty
PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyWed Feb 20, 2013 7:09 am

AS MUCH AS YOU CAN


And if you can't shape your life the way you want,
at least try as much as you can
not to degrade it
by too much contact with the world,
by too much activity and talk.

Try not to degrade it by dragging it along,
taking it around and exposing it so often
to the daily silliness
of social events and parties,
until it comes to seem a boring hanger-on.

C. Cavafy, 1913

_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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Lyssa
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Lyssa

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Greek Poems Empty
PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyWed Feb 20, 2013 7:10 am

I know the night no longer, the terrible anonymity of death
A fleet of stars moors in the haven of my heart
O Hesperos, sentinel, that you may shine by the side
Of a skyblue breeze on an island which dreams
Of me anouncing the dawn from its rocky heights
My twin eyes set you sailing embraced
With my true heart's star: I know the night no longer
I know the names no longer of a world which disavows me
I read seashells, leaves, and the stars clearly
My hatred is superfluous on the roads of the sky
Unless it is the dream which watches me again
As I walked by the sea of immortality in tears
O Hesperos, under the arc of your golden fire
I know the night no longer that is a night only.

Odysseus Elytis

_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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Lyssa
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Lyssa

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Greek Poems Empty
PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyWed Feb 20, 2013 7:11 am

HALASMATA (RUINS) from Still Life
by Kostis Palamas

I returned to my golden playgrounds,
I returned to my white boyhood trail,
I returned to see the wondrous palace,
Built just for me by love's divine ways.
Blackberry bushes now cover the boyhood trail,
And the midday suns have burned the playgrounds,
And a tremor has destroyed my palace so rare,
And in the midst of fallen walls and burned Timbers,
I remain lifeless; lizards and snakes
With me now live the sorrows and the hates;
And of my palace a broken mass now remains.

_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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Lyssa
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Lyssa

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Greek Poems Empty
PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyWed Feb 20, 2013 7:14 am

GOD ABANDONS ANTHONY
by K. P. Kavafis

When suddenly at midnight
An invisible troupe is heard passing by,
With exquisite music, and great voices -
Your good luck that just abandoned you,
Your failed work, your life's plans that
Proved to be illusions, do not uselessly bemoan.
Like one prepared for so long, like a brave man,
Bid farewell to Alexandria that leaves you.
Especially do not be fooled, do not say that
It was a dream, that you have not heard right -
Such vain hopes do not befit one like you.
Like one prepared for so long, like a brave man,
You who were equal and deserved such a city,
Walk with steady foot to the window,
And listen with emotion, but not with
Timid entreaties and unseemly grief,
As your last pleasure, to the sounds,
The great organs from that mystic band,
And bid farewell to Alexandria you are losing.

_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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Lyssa
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Lyssa

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Greek Poems Empty
PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyWed Feb 20, 2013 7:15 am

SEA OF ALL WATERS
(Greek folk song from the Cyclades Islands)

Oh sea that drinks all rivers and waters,
and leaves none of our young men around:
"Slacken away, let go" ...
ah you treacherous sea!
Cursed sea, what did I do to you
and you hold my man abroad for so long?
Oh sea, lying out there for me to gaze at,
and knowing my sorrow all too well,
please bring back from abroad my love.
Oh sea that hits me wave after wave,
pity me not for loving you so much.
Oh my sky-colored sea and you blue waves,
bring back my love, end my sighing.
"Slacken away, let go" ...
ah you treacherous sea!

_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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Lyssa
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Lyssa

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Greek Poems Empty
PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyWed Feb 20, 2013 7:16 am

An Old Man on the River Bank

And yet we should consider how we go forward.
To feel is not enough, nor to think, nor to move
nor to put your body in danger in front of an old loophole
when scalding oil and molten lead furrow the walls.

And yet we should consider towards what we go forward,
not as our pain would have it, and our hungry children
and the chasm between us and the companions calling from the opposite shore;
nor as the bluish light whispers it in an improvised hospital,
the pharmaceutic glimmer on the pillow of the youth operated on at noon;
but it should be in some other way, I would say like
the long river that emerges from the great lakes enclosed deep in Africa,
that was once a god and then became a road and a benefactor, a judge and a delta;
that is never the same, as the ancient wise men taught,
and yet always remains the same body, the same bed, and the same Sign,
the same orientation.

I want nothing more than to speak simply, to be granted that grace.
Because we've loaded even our song with so much music that it's slowly sinking
and we've decorated our art so much that its features have been eaten away by gold
and it's time to say our few words because tomorrow our soul sets sail.

If pain is human we are not human beings merely to suffer pain;
that's why I think so much these days about the great river,
this meaning that moves forward among herbs and greenery
and beasts that graze and drink, men who sow and harvest,
great tombs even and small habitations of the dead.
This current that goes its way and that is not so different from the blood of men,
from the eyes of men when they look straight ahead without fear in their hearts,
without the daily tremor for trivialities or even for important things;
when they look straight ahead like the traveller who is used to gauging his way by the stars,
not like us, the other day, gazing at the enclosed garden of a sleepy Arab house,
behind the lattices the cool garden changing shape, growing larger and smaller,
we too changing, as we gazed, the shape of our desire and our hearts,
at noon's precipitation, we the patient dough of a world that throws us out and kneads us,
caught in the embroidered nets of a life that was as it should be and then became dust and sank into the sands
leaving behind it only that vague dizzying sway of a tall palm tree

Giorgos Seferis

_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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Lyssa
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Lyssa

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Greek Poems Empty
PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyWed Feb 20, 2013 7:16 am

Nikiforos Vrettakos

That's How Taygetos Stood For Me

Taygeros stood for me as my mother's bosom.
It irrigated me blue, testy blood,
sun and greenery
until my soul is tied as its rock,
till in my heart its deep ravines are carved
and shape into my life its twelve peaks
so I could go up with my sole dream the sun.
αnd the sun my only thirst
Thirst as deep as the ocean,
As high as the moon,
such thirst as to sadden God.

...That's how Taygetos backed me up
till the two children of God: poetry and love,
were born inside me!

_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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Lyssa
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Lyssa

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Greek Poems Empty
PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyWed Feb 20, 2013 7:21 am

Nikiforos Vrettakos

Letter to the Man of my Country

Don't betray me!
And above all do not tell him
that hope has forsaken me!

As you look up at Taygetos mark the ravines
which I crossed, and the peaks that I trod
and the stars I saw. Tell them from me,
tell them from my tears
I still insist that the world is beautiful!

_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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Lyssa
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Lyssa

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Greek Poems Empty
PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyWed Feb 20, 2013 7:22 am

Nikiforos Vrettakos

Investigation

The Ten Commandments

I minister to life's suffering, yet I
musn't forget I was also born
a high priest of beauty and I'm obliged
to celebrate our world, to transform
its radiance into the written word.
The First
and Last commandment
of beauty: love.



_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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Lyssa
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Lyssa

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Greek Poems Empty
PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyWed Feb 20, 2013 7:22 am

Nikiforos Vrettakos

The view below

My contention is with the guns
that have learned to speak
and insist on
the silence of the poets.

Yet i know full well
the thunder contained
in my voice
will be heard later.



_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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Lyssa
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Lyssa

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Greek Poems Empty
PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyWed Feb 20, 2013 7:23 am

Nikiforos Vrettakos

Neither

Neither solitude nor night
frightens me. I am
content. I want for nothing.
I've found the breasts
with the milk of the universe.



_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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Lyssa
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Lyssa

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Greek Poems Empty
PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyWed Feb 20, 2013 7:23 am

Nikiforos Vrettakos

Faces of flowers

Once again today
I stopped and for a long time gazed
at the face of a flower.
I located its eyes;
I bent down
inside it
and felt
awe.

And I was filled iwth love
filled with reverence
filled with humankind.

_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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Lyssa
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Lyssa

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Greek Poems Empty
PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyWed Feb 20, 2013 7:24 am

Erotikos Logos

I

Rose of fate, you looked for ways to wound us
yet you bent like the secret about to be released
and the command you chose to give us was beautiful
and your smile was like a ready sword.

The ascent of your cycle livened creation
from your thorn emerged the way's thought
our impulse dawned naked to possess you
the world was easy: a simple pulsation.



II

The secrets of the sea are forgotten on the shores
the darkness of the depths is forgotten in the surf;
the corals of memory suddenly shine purple. . .
O do not stir. . . listen to hear its light

motion. . . you touched the tree with the apples
the hand reached out, the thread points the way and guides you. . .
O dark shivering in the roots and the leaves
if it were but you who would bring the forgotten dawn!

May lilies blossom again on the meadow of separation
may days open mature, the embrace of the heavens,
may those eyes alone shine in the glare
the pure soul be outlined like the song of a flute.

Was it night that shut its eyes? Ashes remain,
as from the string of a bow a choked hum remains,
ash and dizziness on the black shore
and dense fluttering imprisoned in surmise.

Rose of the wind, you knew but took us unknowing
at a time when thought was building bridges
so that fingers would knit and two fates pass by
and spill into the low and rested light.



III

O dark shivering in the roots and the leaves!
Come forth sleepless form in the gathering silence
raise your head from your cupped hands
so that your will be done and you tell me again

the words that touched and merged with the blood like an embrace;
and let your desire, deep like the shade of a walnut tree, bend
and flood us with your lavish hair
from the down of the kiss to the leaves of the heart.

You lowered your eyes and you had the smile
that masters of another time humbly painted.
Forgotten reading from an ancient gospel,
your words breathed and your voice was gentle:

‘The passing of time is soft and unworldly
and pain floats lightly in my soul
dawn breaks in the heavens, the dream remains afloat
and it's as if scented shrubs were passing.

‘With my eyes' startling, with my body's blush
a flock of doves awakens and descends
their low, circling flight entangles me
the stars are a human touch on my breast.

‘I hear, as in a sea shell, the distant
adverse and confused lament of the world
but these are moments only, they disappear,
and the two-branched thought of my desire reigns alone.

‘It seemed I'd risen naked in a vanished recollection
when you came, strange and familiar, my beloved
to grant me, bending, the boundless deliverance
I was seeking from the wind's quick sistrum. . .'

The broken sunset declined and was gone
and it seemed a delusion to ask for the gifts of the sky.
You lowered your eyes. The moon's thorn blossomed
and you became afraid of the mountain's shadows.

. . . In the mirror how our love diminishes
in sleep the dreams, school of oblivion
in the depths of time, how the heart contracts
and vanishes in the rocking of a foreign embrace. . .



IV

Two serpents, beautiful, apart, tentacles of separation
crawl and search, in the night of the trees,
for a secret love in hidden bowers;
sleepless they search, they neither drink nor eat.

Circling, twisting, their insatiable intent
spins, multiplies, turns, spreads rings on the body
which the laws of the starry dome silently govern,
stirring its hot, irrepressible frenzy.

The forest stands as a shivering pillar for night
and the silence is a silver cup where moments fall
echoes distinct, whole, a careful chisel
sustained by carved lines. . .

The statue suddenly dawns. But the bodies have vanished
in the sea in the wind in the sun in the rain.
So the beauties nature grants us are born
but who knows if a soul hasn't died in the world.

The parted serpents must have circled in fantasy
(the forest shimmers with birds, shoots, blossoms)
their wavy searching still remains,
like the turnings of the cycle that bring sorrow.



V

Where is the double-edged day that had changed everything?
Won't there be a navigable river for us?
Won't there be a sky to dropp refreshing dew
for the soul benumbed and nourished by the lotus?

On the stone of patience we wait for the miracle
that opens the heavens and makes all things possible
we wait for the angel as in the age-old drama
at the moment when the open roses of twilight

disappear. . . Red rose of the wind and of fate,
you remained in memory only, a heavy rhythm
rose of the night, you passed, undulating purple
undulation of the sea. . . The world is simple.

Giorgos Seferis

_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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Lyssa
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Lyssa

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Greek Poems Empty
PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyWed Feb 20, 2013 7:25 am

‘The nightingales won't let you sleep in Platres.'

Shy nightingale, in the breathing of the leaves,
you who bestow the forest's musical coolness
on the sundered bodies, on the souls
of those who know they will not return.
Blind voice, you who grope in the darkness of memory
for footsteps and gestures — I wouldn't dare say kisses —
and the bitter raving of the frenzied slave-woman.

‘The nightingales won't let you sleep in Platres.'

Platres: where is Platres? And this island: who knows it?
I've lived my life hearing names I've never heard before:
new countries, new idiocies of men
or of the gods;
my fate, which wavers
between the last sword of some Ajax
and another Salamis,
brought me here, to this shore.
The moon
rose from the sea like Aphrodite,
covered the Archer's stars, now moves to find
the heart of Scorpio, and alters everything.
Truth, where's the truth?
I too was an archer in the war;
my fate: that of a man who missed his target.

Lyric nightingale,
on a night like this, by the shore of Proteus,
the Spartan slave-girls heard you and began their lament,
and among them — who would have believed it? — Helen!
She whom we hunted so many years by the banks of the Scamander.
She was there, at the desert's lip; I touched her; she spoke to me:
‘It isn't true, it isn't true,' she cried.
‘I didn't board the blue bowed ship.
I never went to valiant Troy.'

Breasts girded high, the sun in her hair, and that stature
shadows and smiles everywhere,
on shoulders, thighs and knees;
the skin alive, and her eyes
with the large eyelids,
she was there, on the banks of a Delta.
And at Troy?
At Troy, nothing: just a phantom image.
That's how the gods wanted it.
And Paris, Paris lay with a shadow as though it were a solid being;
and for ten whole years we slaughtered ourselves for Helen.

Great suffering had desolated Greece.
So many bodies thrown
into the jaws of the sea, the jaws of the earth
so many souls
fed to the millstones like grain.
And the rivers swelling, blood in their silt,
all for a linen undulation, a filmy cloud,
a butterfly's flicker, a wisp of swan's down,
an empty tunic — all for a Helen.
And my brother?
Nightingale nightingale nightingale,
what is a god? What is not a god? And what is there in between them?

‘The nightingales won't let you sleep in Platres.'

Tearful bird,
on sea-kissed Cyprus
consecrated to remind me of my country,
I moored alone with this fable,
if it's true that it is a fable,
if it's true that mortals will not again take up
the old deceit of the gods;
if it's true
that in future years some other Teucer,
or some Ajax or Priam or Hecuba,
or someone unknown and nameless who nevertheless saw
a Scamander overflow with corpses,
isn't fated to hear
messengers coming to tell him
that so much suffering, so much life,
went into the abyss
all for an empty tunic, all for a Helen.

Giorgos Seferis

_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyWed Feb 20, 2013 7:26 am

In the Manner of G.S.

On Pelion among the chestnut trees the Centaur's shirt
slipped through the leaves to fold around my body
as I climbed the slope and the sea came after me
climbing too like mercury in a thermometer till we found the mountain waters.
On Santorini touching islands that were sinking
hearing a pipe play somewhere on the pumice stone
my hand was nailed to the gunwale by an arrow shot suddenly
from the confines of a vanished youth.
At Mycenae I raised the great stones and the treasures of the house of Atreus
and slept with them at the hotel 'Belle Helene de Menelas';
they disappeared only at dawn when Cassandra crowed,
a cock hanging from her black throat.
On Spetses, Poros, and Mykonos the barcaroles sickened me.

What do they want, all those who say they're in Athens or Piraeus?
Someone comes from Salamis and asks someone else whether
he 'originates from Omonia Square? '
'No, I originate from Syntagma, ' replies the other, pleased;
'I met Yianni and he treated me to an ice cream.'
Meanwhile Greece is travelling
and we don't know anything, we don't know we're all sailors out of work,
we don't know how bitter the port becomes when all the ships have gone;
we mock those who do know.

Strange people! they say they're in Attica but they're really nowhere;
they buy sugared almonds to get married
they carry hair tonic, have their photographs taken
the man I saw today sitting against a background of pigeons and flowers
let the hands of the old photographer smoothe away the
wrinkles left on his face by all the birds in the sky.

Meanwhile Greece goes on travelling, always travelling
and if we see 'the Aegean flower with corpses'
it will be with those who tried to catch the big ship by swimming after it
those who got bored waiting for the ships that cannot move
the ELSI, the SAMOTHRAKI, the AMVRAKIKOS.
The ships hoot now that dusk falls on Piraeus, hoot and hoot, but no capstan moves, no chain gleams wet in the vanishing light,
the captain stands like a stone in white and gold.

Wherever I travel Greece wounds me,
curtains of mountains, archipelagos, naked granite.
They call the one ship that sails AGONY 937.

Giorgos Seferis

_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyWed Feb 20, 2013 7:26 am

Our mind is a virgin forest of killed friends...

'our mind is a virgin forest of killed friends.
And if I talk to you with fairy tales and parables
it is because you listen to it more sweetly, and you can't talk of horror because it's alive

because it doesn't speak and moves
it drips the day, it drips on sleep
like a pain reminding of evils.

To speak of heroes to speak of heroes: Michalis
who left with open wounds from hospital
may have talked of heroes when, that night
he was dragging his foot in the blacked-out city,
was screaming feeling our pain 'in the dark
we go, in the dark we move...'
Heroes move in the dark.

G. Seferis

_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyWed Feb 20, 2013 7:28 am

Ha!

Rodamon and Eve


Ready to commit suicide (as Balthus says) is Humanity;

(but) to listen to Mozart nobody seems willing

[.....]

"| Children and grand-children of Renunciation
| are all of them bastards.

(paidiA ki engOnia tis apArnisis
EInai Ola tous bAstarda").


Elytis

_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*


Last edited by Lyssa on Wed Feb 20, 2013 7:29 am; edited 1 time in total
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PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyWed Feb 20, 2013 7:28 am

The Primal Paradise
-Elytis



I don't know at all, anything about "Primal Sins",
and other Western inventions.

Nevertheless, so far away, so long ago,
back in the frost of our first days,
even before the time of our Mother's Hut
it felt so nice, at the time!

The white garments of the angels I remember
closed-up in front but left unbuttoned
exactly like those girls in uniforms,
girls working at the hairdressers.
-a miracle! and all the geraniums
in a long pavement, all-white in the lime
turned to the wind, you could see them grinding
ceaselessly the white pith of the Sun...

Sitting cross-legged
in the beach where the wind shivered
full of golden spark from the sneezers
I could see them galloping
girls of the South-East Wind
girls with cool buttocks...

The angels were teasing me,
gathered around me, asking:
"What is Pain?" and "What is sickness?"
and I didn't know at all.
I didn't know, I hadn't even heard of 'the Tree'
through which death came into the world.

Well? Death, was it true? Not this death, but the other one
-which will come with the first tear of the newly-born?
Was Injustice true? Was the rage of the nations true?
Was the Work-toil real, all day and all-night-long, too?

And the Archangels, all of them,
Michael, Gabriel, Ouriel, Rafael,
Gaboudelon, Akir, Arphoughiton,
Belouchos, Zabouleon, were laughing,
shaking their golden heads like corn-plants in the wind

knowing that the only death, the only one
was the death manufactured by the minds of men
and their biggest Lie, the Tree, never (even) existed !

_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyWed Feb 20, 2013 7:29 am

Vrettakos is my favorite.

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γνῶθι σεαυτόν
μηδέν άγαν
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Lyssa
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PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyWed Feb 20, 2013 7:30 am

Nice to know.

_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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Lyssa
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PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyWed Feb 20, 2013 7:30 am

| Maria Nephele lives in the antipodes of Morality
| she is full of Ethos.
| When she says 'I will sleep with so-and-so'
| she means the will murder History once more...

(i MarIa nefEli zei stous antIpodes tis eethikEEs
EInai Olo EEthos.
Otan lEei 'tha koimoithO m'aftOn,
ennoEI oti tha skotOsei akOmi mia forA tin istorIa...)

Elytis


[NOTE: Instead of the Christian/monogamous 'ideals', the nature of
Maria Nephele is "polyamorous", like the Goddess Aphroditee
(Venus) who had countless lovers. However, her polyamorous
nature is not 'greedy hedonism', but profoundly revolutionary
and capable of changing History. Her erotic ecstasy 'murders
History', i.e. changes the 'established order' of the World.]

_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyFri Feb 22, 2013 1:47 pm

Lyrics from the music artist Rembetika.
Poignant, human, all-too-human poems.

Zembekiko

With planes and ships and with old friends.
We wander in the dark but you don’t hear us.
You don’t hear us when we sing with electric voices,
in the underground arcades.
Until our orbits meet
Our basic principles.

Our father, the sea breeze, (Oh Batis could be his nickname too)
Who came from Smyrni in 1922
And he lived for 50 years ,
In a secret basement.
In this world those who love eat dirty bread,
My father Batis said one Sunday.
And their passion followed an underground route.

Last night I saw a friend wandering around like an elf,
On his motorbike and dogs were chasing him.
Rise up my soul, give me electricity.
Set your clothes on fire,
Set your instruments on fire,
To blow up like a black spirit,
Our great voice.


_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyFri Feb 22, 2013 1:47 pm

Your Eyelashes Shine'

Your lashes shine,
Like the flowers in a valley,
Like the flowers in a valley,
Your lashes shine.

You drift your lashes away,
And you refuse to care about my thoughts.
You drift your lashes away,
And you refuse to care about my thoughts.

Your eyes, my sister, broke my heart.
Your eyes, my sister, broke my heart.

Your eyes are never going to find eyes like mine.
Your eyes are never going to find eyes like mine.



_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyFri Feb 22, 2013 1:48 pm

Divorce'.

I granted you a divorce,
what more do you want from me.
Now you go around telling people,
What you have against me.
Now you go around telling people,
What you have against me.

You know, I married you in St. Dionysos
And I turned you into a housewife,
And I turned you into a housewife,
And now nobody talks to you.

I should have kept you on your toes,
I should have set your heart on fire.
Take your divorce and go do your thing
Take your divorce and go do your thing.



_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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Lyssa
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PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyFri Feb 22, 2013 1:48 pm

In this Bad World'.

In this bad world,
I’m not hoping for anything good.
In this bad world,
I’m not hoping for anything good.

Your friends and relatives
All want to take advantage of you.
In a gulp of water, when they find you,
They want to drown you.

Your friends and relatives
All want to take advantage of you.
In a gulp of water, when they see you,
They want to drown you.

And those whom you’ve helped
When they suffered,
If they see you in a difficult moment
They pretend they don’t know you.



_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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Lyssa
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Lyssa

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PostSubject: Re: Greek Poems Greek Poems EmptyFri Feb 22, 2013 1:48 pm

'Leave Me, Leave Me'.

You don’t want to marry me,
You’re afraid of being poor,
But I have a dowry which is honor,
Which is worth more.

Let me, let me forget you,
Let me , let me live alone.

You want to marry a rich girl
Who owns houses and has money,
You put me aside because I sleep in a shack.

Look how money fixes you in our days.
Make me go away,
And go embrace your wealth.


_________________
Greek Poems 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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