η γάρ σιωπή τοίς σοφοίσιν απόκρισι

LIFE’S LACK OF APPETITE

I’m not hungry, I don’t hurt I don’t stink

perhaps deep inside I suffer and I don’t know it

I pretend I laugh

I don’t seek the impossible

nor the possible, bodies

forbidden to me don’t please my eyes.

Sometimes I gaze the sky

with a yearning glance

when the sun lessens its gleam and

the blue lover surrenders

to the beauty of the night.

My only involvement

with the going around of the world

is my steady breath.

But I also feel another

strange involvement:

the agony I suddenly feel

for the human pain.

It spreads on earth

like a drenched in blood

liturgical tablecloth

that shrouds myths and gods

it renews itself endlessly

and becomes one with life.

Yes, I want to cry now

but even the fountain of my tears

has turned dry.

Katerina Aggelaki—Rouk, translated by Manolis Aligizakis

"Whacher,

Emily’s habitual spelling of this word,

has caused confusion.

For example

in the first line of the poem printed Tell me, whether, is it winter?

in the Shakespeare Head edition.

But whacher is what she wrote.

Whacher is what she was.

She whached God and humans and moor wind and open night.

She whached eyes, stars, inside, outside, actual weather.

She whached the bars of time, which broke.

She whached the poor core of the world,

wide open.

To be a whacher is not a choice.

There is nowhere to get away from it,

no ledge to climb up to—like a swimmer

who walks out of the water at sunset

shaking the drops off, it just flies open.

To be a whacher is not in itself sad or happy,

although she uses these words in her verse

as she uses the emotions of sexual union in her novel,

grazing with euphemism the work of whaching.

But it has no name.

It is transparent.

Sometimes she calls it Thou."

Anne Carson.

Child, Sister, think how sweet to go out there and live together! To love at leisure, love and die in that land that resembles you! For me, damp suns in disturbed skies share mysterious charms with your treacherous eyes as they shine through tears.

There, there’s only order, beauty: abundant, calm, voluptuous.

Gleaming furniture, polished by years passing, would ornament our bedroom; rarest flowers, their odors vaguely mixed with amber; rich ceilings; deep mirrors; an Oriental splendor—everything there would address our souls, privately, in their sweet native tongue.

There, there’s only order, beauty: abundant, calm, voluptuous.

See on these canals those sleeping boats whose mood is vagabond; it’s to satisfy your least desire that they come from the world’s end. —Setting suns reclothe fields, the canals, the whole town, in hyacinth and gold; the world falling asleep in a warm light.

There, there’s only order, beauty: abundant, calm, voluptuous

Invitation to the Voyage by Baudelaire Charles

The Paris

I know a gentleman very strange

that words he always speaks strangely

for Paris

to our company when he comes to sit down.

They say about him

how from his student years they had defined,

unique

in his life ideal

to go to Paris.

He had been drunk for years

for this dream trip

that he longed for.

He talked about it everywhere;

in his dreams it was shielding;

so much so that his lust over time

became an ornament in his existence

brilliant.

To go to Paris ...

For this dream trip

he killed fleeting desires

and made bloody savings

to make it happen.

To go to Paris ...

And yes,

that one day in the cisterns

he succeeds.

And one morning in the train a wagon

for Paris drunk begins.

- But,

just looked away at the Eiffel Tower

fade into the background of the sky,

a horrible thought rushed into the arch

of the mind:

"And then? And then what would happen?

How could he live anymore

without that longing for Paris? "

Because he felt good now that

in a little while he would be in Paris.

- And then

made a huge decision

who so far has not been found to forgive his

action.

Instead of moving to Paris

went down to a suburb,

in St. Denis.

And in the morning from the same street

he come back here again.

- And now, as then before he leaves, again,

with a longing like before,

he speaks and says everywhere, that he has defined

unique

in his life ideal

t o g o t o P a r i s.

The Paris by Laskos Orestis

Fontaine de Medicis*

I know a secluded corner in a large park

where even loving couples never dare go,

for darksome waters lie there chockablock with rotted leaves,

and deep-green shadows droop in their acqueous veils.

There stand stone benches, ivy-trellised,

and naked statues, moss-clad,

and a deadly quiet but for the murmurous

lamentation of mysterious waters that goes on and on.

There I’ve always seen unknown and sallow women

as though without age, with no life in their eyes,

spread on their knees their eternal embroideries,

and pallid youths holding books in their hands:

yet those never embroidered and these never read,

but lost in thought gazed on the dark, stagnant waters.

Fontaine de Medicis* by Ouranis Kostas

*In the Luxembourg Gardens, Paris.

"It's unbearable... It's bitter

To reach slowly to the shore

Without being a castaway

Nor a savior

Just a wreck."

Menelaos Lountemis