flahute » C.P. Cavafy

Poetry Friday

flahute — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:06:34 +0000

ITHAKA

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can; and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn’t have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

— C.P. Cavafy (1863 – 1933), Greek poet and journalist. Translated by Edmund Keeley

Poetry Friday

flahute — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:45:37 +0000

REMEMBER, BODY …

Body, remember not only how much you were loved,
not only the beds where you lay,
but also those desires for you,
shining clearly in eyes
and trembling in a voice—and some chance
obstacle thwarted them.
Now when everything is the past,
it almost looks as if you gave yourself
to those desires as well—how they shone—
remember—in the eyes that looked at you,
how they trembled for you in the voice—remember, body.

— C.P. Cavafy (1863 – 1933), Greek poet and journalist. Translated by Aliki Barnstone

Poetry Friday

flahute — Fri, 08 May 2009 12:30:09 +0000

SINCE NINE——

Half past twelve. The time has quickly passed
since nine o’clock when I first turned up the lamp
and sat down here. I’ve been sitting without reading,
without speaking. With whom should I speak,
so utterly alone within this house?
The apparition of my youthful body,
since nine o’clock when I first turned up the lamp,
has come and found me and reminded me
of shuttered perfumed rooms
and of pleasure spent—what wanton pleasure!
And it also brought before my eyes
streets made unrecognizable by time,
bustling city centres that are no more
and theatres and cafés that existed long ago.
The apparition of my youthful body
came and also brought me cause for pain:
deaths in the family; separations;
the feelings of my loved ones, the feelings of
those long dead which I so little valued.
Half past twelve. How the time has passed.
Half past twelve. How the years have passed.

— C.P. Cavafy (1863 – 1933), Greek Poet. Translated by Daniel Mendelsohn

Poetry Friday

flahute — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 06:32:34 +0000

HE ASKED ABOUT THE QUALITY

He came out of the office where he was employed
in an unimportant and poorly paid position
up to eight pounds a month, with tips;
when he finished his tedious work
that kept him stooped all afternoon,
he came out at seven, and sauntered slowly,
gazing idly in the street. Beautiful
and interesting, he carried himself
as if hed reached his full sensual potential.
He turned twenty-nine a month ago.

He gazed idly in the street, and clown the poor alleys
that led to his rooms.

Passing by a small shop
where they sold cheap
and inferior goods for laborers,
he saw a face inside, he saw a shape
that moved him to enter, and he acted as if
he wanted to see colored handkerchiefs.

He asked about the quality of the handkerchiefs
and what they cost
in a choked voice
almost erased by desire.
And the answers came the same way,
absently, in a lowered voice,
with an implied consent.

They kept talking about the merchandise—but
their sole aim: to touch hands
on top of the handkerchiefs, to draw
their faces together, their lips, as if by accident;
a fleeting touch of their limbs.

Quickly and furtively so the shopkeeper
sitting in the back would not notice.

  — C.P. Cavafy (1863 – 1933), Greek Poet.

Quotes of the Day

flahute — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 02:41:50 +0000

THE BED

  The pulsing stops where time has been,
    The garden is snow-bound,
The branches weighed dow and the paths filled in,
    Drifts quilt the ground.

  We lie soft-caught, still now it’s done,
    Loose-twined across the bed
Like wrestling statues; but it still goes on
    Inside my head.

  — Thom Gunn (1929 – 2004), British poet.

RETURN

Return often and take me,
beloved sensation, return and take me —
when the memory of the body awakens,
and old desire again runs through the blood;
when the lips and the skin remember,
and the hands feel as if they touch again.

Return often and take me at night,
when the lips and the skin remember …

  — C.P. Cavafy (1863 – 1933), Greek-Egyptian poet, journalist and civil servant.
      Translation by Rae Dalven.