Succession / Yannis Ritsos

Succession

The sun doesn’t think about your hesitations—

it wants you naked and it takes you naked

until the night comes to dress you

After the sun there is repentance

after repentance the sun again

Yannis Ritsos

Translated by Manolis Aligizakis

Model Olga Kobzar shot
by Tatiana Mertsalova

The Stream of Life / Clarice Lispector

"Yes, this is life seen by life. But suddenly I forget how to capture whatever is happening, I don’t know how to capture whatever exists except by living here each thing that arises and no matter what it is: I am almost free of my errors. I let the free horse run fiery. I, who trot nervously and only reality delimits me.

And when the day reaches its end I hear the crickets and become entirely replete and unintelligible. Then I live the blue daybreak that comes with its bulge full of little birds—I wonder if I’m giving you an idea of what a person goes through in life? And every thing that occurs to me I note to pin it down. For I want to feel in my hands the quivering and lively nerve of the now and may that nerve resist me like a restless vein. And may it rebel, that nerve of life, and may it contort and throb. And may sapphires, amethysts and emeralds spill into the dark eroticism of abundant life: because in my darkness quakes at last the great topaz, word that has its own light."

Clarice Lispector - (The Stream of Life)

"Sí, ésta es la vida vista por la vida. Sin embargo de repente me olvido de cómo captar lo que sucede, no sé captar lo que existe sino viviendo aquí cada cosa que surge, sin importar lo que sea: estoy casi libre de mis errores. Dejo que el caballo libre corra fogoso. Troto nerviosa y sólo la realidad me delimita.

Y cuando el día acaba escucho a los grillos y me transformo entera, repleta e ininteligible. Después vivo la madrugada azulada que viene con su bóveda llena de pajaritos —¿será que te estoy dando una idea de lo que una persona pasa en la vida?—Y cada cosa que me pasa la anoto para grabarla. Pues quiero sentir en las manos el nervio turbulento y vivaz del ya y que ese nervio se me resista como bulliciosa vena. Y que se rebele, ese nervio de vida, y que se contraiga y palpite. Y que se derramen zafiros, amatistas y esmeraldas en el oscuro erotismo de la vida plena: porque en mi oscuridad por fin tiembla el gran topacio, palabra que tiene luz propia."

Clarice Lispector - (Agua viva)

Photo by Wally Villani

The House-Dog’s Grave / Robinson Jeffers

The House-Dog’s Grave

I’ve changed my ways a little; I cannot now

Run with you in the evenings along the shore,

Except in a kind of dream; and you,

If you dream a moment,

You see me there.

So leave awhile the paw-marks on the front door

Where I used to scratch to go out or in,

And you’d soon open; leave on the kitchen floor

The marks of my drinking-pan.

I cannot lie by your fire as I used to do

On the warm stone,

Nor at the foot of your bed; no,

All the nights through I lie alone.

But your kind thought has laid me less than six feet

Outside your window where firelight so often plays,

And where you sit to read‚

And I fear often grieving for me‚

Every night your lamplight lies on my place.

You, man and woman, live so long, it is hard

To think of you ever dying.

A little dog would get tired, living so long.

I hope that when you are lying

Under the ground like me your lives will appear

As good and joyful as mine.

No, dears, that’s too much hope:

You are not so well cared for as I have been.

And never have known the passionate undivided

Fidelities that I knew.

Your minds are perhaps too active, too many-sided…

But to me you were true.

You were never masters, but friends. I was your friend.

I loved you well, and was loved. Deep love endures

To the end and far past the end. If this is my end,

I am not lonely. I am not afraid. I am still yours.

Robinson Jeffers

Lazy Afternoon, c. 1915. by Henry Grinnell Thomson

Nocturne / E. E. Cummings

Nocturne

When the lithe moonlight silently 

Leaped like a satyr to the grass, 

Filling the night with nakedness, 

All silently I loved my love 

In gardens of white ivory. 

Three fragrant trees which guard the gates, 

Three perfume-trees which sweeten nights, 

Rise upon heaven, full of stars 

And dripping with white radiance. 

Her body is more white than trees. 

Five founts of Bacchus, honey-cold, 

Five showers making drunk the lawns, 

Spout up a dark delicious rain 

Filling the earth with sleep and tears. 

Her tresses are more sweet than wine. 

Seven flowers which breathe divinity, 

Seven wondering blossoms of embrace, 

Open their glory to the moon, 

Kissing white immortality. 

Her mouth is chaster than a flower. 

When the fleet moonlight silently 

Fled like a white nymph down the grass, 

Leaving the night to loneliness, 

All songfully I loved my love 

In gardens of white ivory. 

The strings are silver to my harp, 

And all the frame is ebony 

I think the moon is blossoming— 

My hungry fingers bite the strings— 

My harp becomes a flower, and blooms. 

The strings are golden to my harp, 

And all the frame is as a rose. 

I think the moon is quivering— 

My longing fingers search the chords— 

My harp becomes a heart, and breaks.

When the first day-beam silently 

Broke like an arrow from the east, 

Quivering unto the heights of dawn, 

All silently I left my love 

In gardens of white ivory. 

There are three trees which stand like dreams 

Before the gates of ivory; 

The moon has withered in the west— 

My harp has withered—Hail the day! 

(Wherefore this dagger at my thighs.) 

There are five founts which play like sleep 

Upon the gates of ivory; 

The moon is songless in the west— 

My harp is songless—Hail the day! 

(Wherefore this dagger at my hands.) 

There are seven flowers which smile like death 

Within the gates of ivory; 

The moon is broken in the west— 

My harp is broken—Hail the day! 

(Wherefore this dagger at my heart.)

E. E. Cummings

Photo by Faye Yerbury

my lady is an ivory garden / E. E. Cummings

my lady is an ivory garden, 

who is filled with flowers. 

under the silent and great blossom 

of subtle colour which is her hair 

her ear is a frail and mysterious flower 

her nostrils 

are timid and exquisite 

flowers skilfully moving 

with the least caress of breathing,her 

eyes and her mouth are three flowers.

My lady is an ivory garden 

her shoulders are smooth and shining 

flowers 

beneath which are the sharp and new 

flowers of her little breasts tilting upward with love 

her hand is five flowers 

upon her whitest belly there is a clever dreamshaped flower 

and her wrists are the merest most wonderful flowers

my lady is filled 

with flowers 

her feet are slenderest 

each is five flowers her ankle 

is a minute flower 

my lady's knees are two flowers 

Her thighs are huge and firm flowers of night 

and perfectly between 

them eagerly sleeping is 

the sudden flower of complete amazement 

my lady who is filled with flowers 

is an ivory garden. 

And the moon is a young man 

who i see regularly,about twilight, 

enter the garden smiling to 

himself.

if you like my poems let them 

walk in the evening,a little behind you

then people will say 

"Along this road i saw a princess pass 

on her way to meet her lover(it was 

toward nightfall)with tall and ignorant servants."

E. E. Cummings

"La mia donna è un giardino d'avorio,

colmo di fiori.

Sotto il silente sbocciare grandioso

dei suoi capelli dal tenue colore

il suo orecchio è un fragile e misterioso fiore,

le sue narici sono timidi e deliziosi fiori sapienti

solleciti alla più lieve carezza del respiro,

gli occhi e la bocca sono tre fiori.

La mia donna è un giardino d'avorio,

le sue spalle sono fiori lucenti e lisci

e sotto di loro i fiori nuovi e 

affilati dei suoi piccoli seni

che amorosi puntano in alto,

la sua mano è cinque fiori.

Sopra il suo ventre bianchissimo poggia

un fiore astuto a forma di sogno,

e i polsi sono purissimi

meravigliosissimi fiori.

La mia donna è colma di fiori,

i suoi piedi sono così snelli

ciascuno è cinque fiori

la caviglia è un fiore minuto,

le ginocchia della mia donna sono due fiori.

Le sue cosce sono solidi e immensi fiori notturni

e fra loro in perfetta mediana avidamente sopito

è il fiore improvviso dell'assoluto stupore."

E. E. Cummings

Photo by Trevor Yerbury