"athens" poems
The dogs chasing the late autumn leaves
Fluttering down the lane way
The sound of the train as it passes by
Peaceful afternoon walk
The cottage walls and porches
Flourish of colour
Enwreathed with ivy green
Bellflowers, hollyhocks, hydrangea
Scents of lavender and sage
Evoke
Memories of childhood days
Visiting grandparents cottages
One in the Irish Wicklow mountains
The other in the suburbs of Athens city
The free flowing sound of the river
Smoke billowing from chimneys
The cottages have no pretense or grandeur
Just a sanctuary of comfort in the silence of the lane
Reaching the darkest corner of the soul
Nov 10, 2013
Nov 10, 2013 at 12:22 PM UTC
only an idiot like me, the rain poured down, my socks were wetted, and i looked at the pavement for glory, instead i found a £10 note and imagined my right shoe on my left leg, and my left shoe on my right leg... just to prove the luck.
it came from listening to rotting christ's kata
ton daimona...
i wrote the poem on two tesco receipts
numbering them no. 1 - .4,
it made sense to just give it a narrative...
the naturally apparent lisp of greek is due to...
lies between theta (θ) and phi (φ)...
check feta cheese... it might be less morbidly fermented...
that's why the greeks have a natural lisp...
it's theta and it's phi...
in english it's like chinese.... w & r...
something's rolling something's waving,
something's trigonometric...
harrison fowd was almost jonathan woss if i care...
the chinese in english debate with chin-chin-wanker
scissors piece of paper stone good luck on the handshake:
lost the price of interest being gained for excavation
purposes of dinosaur bones and inflation via the
ptertodactyl of the extended mohawk shave...
english dicionary makes me confused...
it places theta alongside the, than... but then
it's therapy... thermometer...
too many unique examples i'd have said...
that's the lisp there... sidelined phew and engaged in phew
in byzantine...
english linguistics is filled with too many "unique" examples
of expression... coupled with the celebrity culture...
i farted and a person took hold of a *** squeeze...
how's that?! english language in summary?
pleasing on the eye... but the spelling? a burden on the tongue.
i know that slavic linguistics would make enlgish that's written
ugly...
it wouldn't be pharmacology but farmacology...
then it made sense, i stopped asking the english dicta
written down, the greek θ wasn't a couple of th & etc...
a few athenains in death metal said it like i said it... the 2nd f...
it was απηθανoν - because it was simply athens - fern fence...
and not d... defence, or anything easily acquired as a prescription
of zee wee point of german scottish.
Dec 10, 2015
Dec 10, 2015 at 7:04 PM UTC
Crazy passion fast deep soul kiss warnings word breathe reckless love devastated desk art struggle pinstripe attempts drunk ghost lost wind beauty hunger soul smile elegance latte knowing containment bond ink shallow identity measure chaos stumbling darling life dance frenzy sweat hole paper haunted only dreams ****** vandalized scars Achilles proceedings bare deep still pain inside lied courts darkness wind step empty rocky soul whisper eyes alone wrapped inside Athens love smile abuse truth lies time mind bungalow knowing liar violated Pandora’s entanglement flashbacks ****** self-preservation private suit weakness baklava hide lips ******* played deserve hold earth destruction haunted coffin judgment dreams hands eternity sleep sunset lips hidden kissed desire champagne stars taint lovers fallen what **** PR glistening intense echoes seeing taste depth care finally beach rolling salt binding heat lost quietly resumed park come believe myself arms world you skin love stranger now
Sep 17, 2013
Sep 17, 2013 at 12:43 PM UTC
Crumbling cities.
Beauty in decay has always reminded me
of you.
When we were little and climbing trees
you told me of ow you would be great
one day,
like Athens and Rome.
I had laughed and called you silly.
Those were places and not people, I had said.
You shoved your tongue out and clamored:
"Watch me do it!"
I think I finally understand what you meant.
Singing songs to me in my backyard you
were amazing, thriving like you had sworn
to me
those many years before.
We danced and screamed from hilltops
with cities unfolding beneath
our mere human feet.
You weren't kind of the world, but you were
king of mine.
Later that night you dropped me off
at my front door.
Kissed my forehead and murmured
"Goodbye, I love you"
instead of wishing me goodnight.
You fell in the time between night and dawn
and when I woke up the next morning
our empire was gone.
Oct 1, 2014
Oct 1, 2014 at 1:06 PM UTC
1768
Lad of Athens, faithful be
To Thyself,
And Mystery—
All the rest is Perjury—
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Now you realize what you did,
you took it too far,
this time it was to deep,
to raw,
now its going to be hard for us both.
I asked for your help
' Its never ending, I again want to die.
Please tell me why?
Be my Soul Mate now just talk to me
help me find my life again.
Not with you, just my life. '
I couldn't get your abuse out of my system
you repeated
"You need to do the leaving"
"Let's die rather then not be together"
I said
"Only with You".
The ongoing flashbacks
of pressurizing
demanding
me to do what you wanted
heightened in Athens.
Questioning all that happened
what did it mean
just
******* my soul and body
So abused
I couldn't disentangle from it
So violated
And you continued it
with your talk and talk.
Your lies of reflection and regret
Your abuse of my love and belief
Then my desperate wish was granted
You made contact via a third party
On reflection
to address the end, to answer my questions,
to give us some meaning, to help us move on with our lives
you cared about my life, to be honest.
the day, the place, the time, the third party all set
then you renegade last minute, no explanation, once again shut me out
without a thought for my life, you willful behavior, ongoing abuse.
So finally now I know you are a pathological liar.
I don't give a **** about you anymore.
Its like I have woken from a nightmare
I have no more energy for you
I am not afraid of the fall out of exposing you
I will no longer protect the secret.
The legal proceedings will tell the truth
And you will have to face your demons.
I will move on with my life
which is so much bigger than yours.
I will fight on to free myself from
your abuse.
My life no longer tenuous.
This is the end of my series of poems - love and deception.
The courts will be my voice.
May 6, 2013
May 6, 2013 at 11:03 AM UTC
FORGET THE FAIRYTALES
Leafes believe the fairytales of the wind
And blows away
Remember to forget the fairytales
Waves believe the fairytales of the land
And loose the sea
Remember to forget the fairytales
Fairies believe the fairytales of the moon
And loose their winds
Remember to forget the fairytales
Desert believe the fairytales of the
shadow and become illusion
Remember to forget the fairytales
Sky believe the fairytales of the earth
And loose the sun
Remember to forget the fairytales
Books believe the fairytales of the truth
And loose their language
Remember to forget the fairytales
Childrens believe the fairytales of the
adults and loose their childhood
Remember to forget the fairytales.
CHRISTOS HARATSARIS
POET
ATHENS-GREECE
Sep 30, 2017
Sep 30, 2017 at 9:27 AM UTC
Socrates dies, sleep easy, dear Athens;
Socrates is found guilty
of asking questions,
one too many;
Socrates is subject to our justice
fair and just and open;
O Socrates dies, sleep easy, dear world,
for Socrates is found guilty
and condemned to die;
Socrates drinks hemlock
and
the questions die with him
and all our answers are safe
and we can blissfully go to bed
for all our fixed answers are safe!
Oct 7, 2010
Oct 7, 2010 at 7:13 PM UTC
"She did the laundry
in the mirror of me
I saw myself in
the mirror and disagreed
with the smell,
The thought of you
was beautiful,
but I was wrong,
and a feeling of discontent
-ment
came over me,"
Misspellings
Mispronunciations
An unconquerable world
of big money
I parted ways with the large
and saw another even larger world,
One that was intelligent and reads
the Wall Street Journal, listens to NPR,
and says "wow" at the sound of hearing
one million dollars, or upon hearing about
San Francisco start-ups,
or Silicon Valley.
Or the opposite, in some ways, but still very
similar to - Virginia Woolf.
whose book on feminism
which I'm unable to explain fully other than
to say that she suggests
that women only need
a bedroom, money, clothes, etc.,
or rather, less than etc.
in that, they need little, but only the bare supplies.
That they should be able to supply themselves with what they need
for when their husband, which, you know, is not required, in her eyes,
for when he separates from her
and leaves her 'in the dust,' alone without anything,
perhaps only with a child, or in another instance, estate-less,
with only a white dress, really more of kitchen-robe than anything else;
like Virginia Woolf says, we should really try and dismantle the patriarchy
that we write and tell about. Reader, what do you after reading a story, article, or book on radical or moderate feminism say? The boys, like me, who will tell, or, try to tell their perspective of the book and say to the closest person around them, "I just read a great book by Virginia Woolf, she brings to mind an image of a university with white buildings and ends of roofs of university buildings leading along to the the main hall of architecture buildings, with sidewalks pristine and underneath people walking in their sweaters, collegiate, and later to make their way to art history classes in the fall evening. So, like Virginia Woolf, who makes you ask why you're not at the Parthenon, but instead are inside of your house, in a city that you don't want to be in, at a hospital, in your apartment, or surrounded by whoever, she nevertheless gives you have a feeling of longing-ness and a strong emotion of want. Virginia Woolf when will we go to Greece together? What do you know about Athens and classical architecture, I nearly beg you.
December 30th 2018 7:11am
Dec 31, 2018
Dec 31, 2018 at 9:51 PM UTC
Hail to Thee, Immortal Three
Knowledge we sing on laud
Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates
Philosophy, to be human awed
Teach through time, consciously
Nod not, what others fraud
Socrates taught, Divine Being
God not of brutal Athens’ passions
Entity of Beauty, Truth Seeing
Goodness unseen in day’s fashions
Soul for unalloyed agreeing
Lessons humanities’ compassion
Talk eternal justice, everlasting life
Socrates’ Sovereign Right of Reason
Clearly mind deceived sense’s strife
Invincible perfection be God’s season
Thus, our key to knowledge ever rife
Priests who find this, absolute treason
No church or Socratic school
A barefoot man roamed to teach
Socrates mocked for looking a fool
His speech not one to simply preach
Plato witnesses a martyr’s drool
Cruel hemlock, words did so breach
Handsome aristocratic youth Plato
Followed Socrates’ Eternal Wisdom
But soon to find his own credo
In Medara to find Euclid and freedom
Egyptian geometry to provide dado
To Plato life, expression; not a system
Eternally an artist, Plato did develop
Philosophic circle in Academus groves
Bring Athens, world knowledge envelop
Discretions of sensations, be not oaths
What man may be, an animal jealous
Plato’s allegorical cave found in droves
As Plato once be Socrates’ disciple
So too, to Plato would Aristotle be
Passing comprehension archetypal
Successions of genius’ visions do see
Aristotle taking it step further, as vital
To science of hands-on discovery
And this is where we see a parting
Of two distinctly opposing philosophies
Plato being at odds, with science starting
Aristotle’s truth, finding no apologies
Things not happening by chance imparting
Frivolity of duopoly, dichotomy to Socrates
But a new era has surely now dawned
Science exploring an invisible atom
And the seen and unseen correspond
So to Aristotle’s, Plato’s, Socrates’ datum
Brilliant new philosophies have spawned
An abstract notion of conceived stratum
May 9, 2016
May 9, 2016 at 12:09 PM UTC
Sings a small boy whose hair is tousled by the wind,
As too the folds of his mother’s peplos and the robes of clouds,
When Greece gathers in silence like the stillness for a deposed crown,
And all Athens around, the song of eiresione for firstfruits of Autumn,
Singing boys with the olive branches of colored wool and garlanded gourds,
A fall-bird to wander the Ionic sky, foretelling of new sunrise.
How that joyful ancient voice still haunts the songbird of sunset.
Apr 2, 2023
Apr 2, 2023 at 11:21 PM UTC
Mutual ************ in Madrid,
Athens in the winter tans me red,
Paris lamps, romantic power grid,
Venice swishes, watching me give head.
Caribbean wave locks me to the sand,
Fresh water fish Frenchly kiss my hair,
Land’s End extends a silver hand,
And all the angels know that I am there.
Nov 13, 2013
Nov 13, 2013 at 3:22 PM UTC
The world’s great age begins anew,
The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake renew
Her winter weeds outworn;
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.
A brighter Hellas rears its mountains
From waves serener far;
A new Peneus rolls his fountains
Against the morning star;
Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.
A loftier Argo cleaves the main,
Fraught with a later prize;
Another Orpheus sings again,
And loves, and weeps, and dies;
A new Ulysses leaves once more
Calypso for his native shore.
O write no more the tale of Troy,
If earth Death’s scroll must be—
Nor mix with Laian rage the joy
Which dawns upon the free,
Although a subtler Sphinx renew
Riddles of death Thebes never knew.
Another Athens shall arise,
And to remoter time
Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,
The splendour of its prime;
And leave, if naught so bright may live,
All earth can take or Heaven can give.
Saturn and Love their long repose
Shall burst, more bright and good
Than all who fell, than One who rose,
Than many unsubdued:
Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers,
But votive tears and symbol flowers.
O cease! must hate and death return?
Cease! must men **** and die?
Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn
Of bitter prophecy!
The world is weary of the past—
O might it die or rest at last!
2.6k
4)
I moved into the woods
built a little cabin, below the rocks
and covered by the trees;
yet I had visitors
who had come astray into the wilderness
Someone wanting space for the night:
“Is there enough room in your cabin?”
“Why,” I said, “there’s plenty all round”
I was vegetarian
but the destitute offered themselves to me -
the religious might say: *God fed me
even in the wilderness!* Ha!
A wandering woman one evening,
she offered love in return
for shelter that night
She let me lick, taste her flesh
“Bite me,” she said
offering a foretaste in our foreplay
Why would they not leave me? –
these wanderers, the intruding world
No, I had not come in like Thoreau
or the Unabomber – but maybe
like the misanthrope Timon of Athens...
afraid of my own hate; but the innocent
seemed to be drawn in as to a...an...abattoir
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 5:11 PM UTC
I.
Wreathed in myrtle, my sword I’ll conceal,
Like those champions devoted and brave,
When they plunged in the tyrant their steel,
And to Athens deliverance gave.
II.
Beloved heroes! your deathless souls roam
In the joy breathing isles of the blest;
Where the mighty of old have their home—
Where Achilles and Diomed rest.
III.
In fresh myrtle my blade I’ll entwine,
Like Harmodius, the gallant and good,
When he made at the tutelar shrine
A libation of Tyranny’s blood.
IV.
Ye deliverers of Athens from shame!
Ye avengers of Liberty’s wrongs!
Endless ages shall cherish your fame,
Embalmed in their echoing songs!
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JESUS emptied the devils of one man into forty hogs and the hogs took the edge of a high rock and dropped off and down into the sea: a mob.
The sheep on the hills of Australia, blundering fourfooted in the sunset mist to the dark, they go one way, they hunt one sleep, they find one pocket of grass for all.
Karnak? Pyramids? Sphinx paws tall as a coolie? Tombs kept for kings and sacred cows? A mob.
Young roast pigs and naked dancing girls of Belshazzar, the room where a thousand sat guzzling when a hand wrote: Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin? A mob.
The honeycomb of green that won the sun as the Hanging Gardens of Nineveh, flew to its shape at the hands of a mob that followed the fingers of Nebuchadnezzar: a mob of one hand and one plan.
Stones of a circle of hills at Athens, staircases of a mountain in Peru, scattered clans of marble dragons in China: each a mob on the rim of a sunrise: hammers and wagons have them now.
Locks and gates of Panama? The Union Pacific crossing deserts and tunneling mountains? The Woolworth on land and the Titanic at sea? Lighthouses blinking a coast line from Labrador to Key West? Pigiron bars piled on a barge whistling in a fog off Sheboygan? A mob: hammers and wagons have them to-morrow.
The mob? A typhoon tearing loose an island from thousand-year moorings and bastions, shooting a volcanic ash with a fire tongue that licks up cities and peoples. Layers of worms eating rocks and forming loam and valley floors for potatoes, wheat, watermelons.
The mob? A jag of lightning, a geyser, a gravel mass loosening...
The mob ... kills or builds ... the mob is Attila or Ghengis Khan, the mob is Napoleon, Lincoln.
I am born in the mob-I die in the mob-the same goes for you-I don't care who you are.
I cross the sheets of fire in No Man's land for you, my brother-I slip a steel tooth into your throat, you my brother-I die for you and I **** you-It is a twisted and gnarled thing, a crimson wool:
One more arch of stars,
In the night of our mist,
In the night of our tears.
2.4k
keep Knocking on heavens door
just chillin on the stoop
nevermore
on top of the world
how bout you?
so you feel alright
kicking it back on the street.
Ya you got your Cadillac
you trying to be discrete,
man your just a drug dealing *****
Standing on the corner
looking like a **********
It looks like you made a switch
To the other side of the game
****** to many *****
lost your needs
just the Taliban
***** concrete
So you say
**** the world
I say **** you too
Ya your just playing with fire
Dwayne Carter
Everybody can be their own martyer
Gonna take them down
Down to the ground
Athens
Serpents corrupting
How’s that feel
comin straight outta my mind?
Do you feel anysort of negative vibes?
Ya im the stoner that cares
now who the **** are you.
I kno the **** is alright
sometimes I gotta medicate the mind
Wake up from your trance
don’t you see whats sublime?
The plant is an herb
grows from the ground
that’s as green as life itself
ts something you gotta enhance.
Why you gotta distribute
all this pollution for the mind?
You ******* wonder
why ****** get a bad rap.
You say you want to be treated
by your stance
but in return
your just ******* with romance
You want us to trust you like any other man
but then you go stealing our ****
now what the ****
am I suppose to do
**** I heard you got an issue
Its just something
you gotta breakthrough
but no matter how gangster you are
in your own little world
its time for a reissue.
So go ahead and keep selling them rocks
You can make all the money in the world
and still never have ****
The sun is shinning bright today
there’s not a cloud in the sky
you have a choice
what are you to do?
just chilling on the stoop
I feel like I’m on top of the world
Jan 22, 2013
Jan 22, 2013 at 6:05 PM UTC
A is for Athens
B is for Berlin
C is for Cairo
D is for Dublin
E is for Edinburgh
F is for Fukishima
G is for Guangzhou
H is for Helsinki
I is for İstanbul
J is for Johannesburg
K is for Kiev
L is for London
M is for Madrid
N is for New York
O is for Oslo
P is for Paris
Q is for Quito
R is for Riga
S is for Shanghai
T is for Tokyo
U is for Ulan Bator
V is for Vancouver
W is for Washington
X is for Xianyang
Y is for Yerevan
Z is for Zagreb
Travel the world
see these places
meet new people
make new friends
take photos
make memories
always be happy
Aug 15, 2014
Aug 15, 2014 at 7:29 PM UTC
Ancient Athens
demonstrated a demise of democracy into despair and squalor
at the hands of the voters.
Ancient Rome
recounts a reduction of a Republic into nationalist rancor
at the hands of the state.
The United States of America
is a sort-of culmination of both;
of how a Democratic Republic may fail,
impoverishing and subjugating it's own
as well as it's proximity,
reducing itself and any it can drag with it
from a respectful idealization of Human Experience
to a bloodthirsty, greedy, vapid shell
of Fascisms past.
Nov 23, 2015
Nov 23, 2015 at 1:27 PM UTC
Areas of knowledge answer: How do we know?
Looking for the origins of our knowledge flow.
From mathematics to the ethics,
History to the arts,
These are the ways we tell types of knowledge apart.
First of these eight categories is math.
From axioms to logic it takes a very exact path.
Deals with conjecture and theorems; creating laws about the world.
Sometimes this complicated topic makes me want to hurl.
Next comes ethics with many complicated questions,
Using morals and values to give the proper suggestion.
Depends on people's views that differ by culture,
Questions from "Theft to save your family?" to "Killing a vulture?"
Areas of knowledge answer: How do we know?
Looking for the origins of our knowledge flow.
From mathematics to the ethics,
History to the arts,
These are the ways we tell types of knowledge apart.
Up comes history dealing only with the past;
It is only concerned with evidence and the facts.
Studies government propaganda to the plight of the peasant.
Deals with any kind of knowledge from creation to the present.
Fourth on the list are the human sciences,
From many loaded questions to our stream of consciousness.
Observations to conclusions, free will to determinism,
Deals with our knowledge of the world from the atom to reductionist
Areas of knowledge answer: How do we know?
Looking for the origins of our knowledge flow.
From mathematics to the ethics,
History to the arts,
These are the ways we tell types of knowledge apart.
Religious knowledge systems deal with people's beliefs;
Knowledge of God and the heavens to the world beneath.
From polytheism in Athens to life after death,
Knowledge coming from religion concerns us to our last breath.
The natural sciences, knowledge of the natural world,
Explaining how things work like biceps d'ring a curl.
Hypothesis, theories and all sorts of paradigms,
Knowledge so revolutionary that in the past it was a crime.
Areas of knowledge answer: How do we know?
Looking for the origins of our knowledge flow.
From mathematics to the ethics,
History to the arts,
These are the ways we tell types of knowledge apart.
Indigenous knowledge systems, the customs of the tribe,
Using folklore and storytelling to spread ancestor's pride.
Knowledge or tradition and customs of the ancient nomads,
Anything about the indigenous from the good to the bad.
Last on the list, the final area of knowledge,
Is the arts, all the way from elementary to college.
Dealing with aesthetics, forgery, kitsch and catharsis;
Without this types of knowledge we'd be stuck in the darkness.
Areas of knowledge answer: How do we know?
Looking for the origins of our knowledge flow.
From mathematics to the ethics,
History to the arts,
These are the ways we tell types of knowledge apart.
Mar 31, 2015
Mar 31, 2015 at 12:33 PM UTC
This brown buff speckled throstle of a bird sits in the higher most branches of a yet to be leafed poplar tree . . . and sings. Such a song in the April morning air it greets the day, celebrates the rising sun. Above a suburban street the bird’s song catches the reverberation of a double row of houses, their windows bouncing sonic reflections of unaccompanied melismata.
Olivier Messiaen loved this bird for its répétition égale. Walking the mountain woods around his summer home he would wonder that the grive musicienne could make so exactly repetition after repetition of a complex phrase. A proto-minimalist perhaps? The male mistle thrush appears in several ***** works but most prominently in Saint Francois d'Assis singing luminously on the clarinet.
Although this is the ungregarious male singing away on this spring morning his name carries a female designation Turdus Philomelos. Poor Philomel, whose name means one who loved song, she was a princess of Athens lusted after by King Tereus who took her to a cottage in distant woods and ***** her. Then, he cut out her tongue.
Vengeful Philomel alone in the woods, but a most resourceful and artistic young woman, she set about weaving a tapestry that told all.
*‘She set up a Tracian loom
And wove on a white fabric scarlet symbols
That told in detail what had happened to her*.’
She sent the finished piece to Tereus who promptly ordered Philomel's death and that of her sisters (one of whom he was married to). As the girls were about to be slain they were changed magically into three birds . .
Joanna Laurens play The Three Birds takes the only fragment we have of Sophocles telling of this strange tale. Laurens is both musician and linguist and the text is a marvel of strange sounds and rhythms as the sisters communicate with each other in their personal private language akin, it is said, to Jersiese, an ancient Breton dialect.
So thank you dear song thrush for this morning's wonder: a song sans pariel.
Jan 18, 2013
Jan 18, 2013 at 12:52 AM UTC
Darkness has pressed up against our lattice windows. Classes start again in the morning. I’m being reabsorbed by college life. I’m a planner. I’ve been going over my syllabuses, repacking my bookbag, charging my power banks, checking and rechecking the assignments due tomorrow. After watching me prep for hours, Peter said, “You’re not going to the MOON.”
Peter asked me last Friday, “Are you excited for Monday? (I’ll find out if I get my fellowship.)
“I’m more excited about tonight,” I said, “I like going out on the town.”
“Wow,” he said, “you’re so different - not like the other girls at all.”
“No!” I said, laughing, “We’re stuck in a rut, we only go to one or two places, ever - if we go out at all. When people come to New Haven, I need places to take them - places besides pizza. At home, in Athens (Ga), I know twenty places - this is RESEARCH.” I assured him.
Peter settled back into his doctorate-fraternity-house yesterday. Tonight (Sunday), there’s music in the suite, the crazy noises of people and the comfort of returned friends. All the roommates are back, greeted with hugs and kisses, as they dragged in their luggage.
Lisa arrived with dinner, for 10, from Dominick's, in Manhattan. Spaghetti, salads, rolls, extra sauce - in six, small, suitcase-sized insulated bags. It was a logistical marvel. It’s only 90 minutes from Manhattan to the residence - we didn’t need to rewarm anything. “I KNOW we could have just eaten in the dining hall,” she said, shrugging, “call it zany - one last hurrah.”
Everyone seemed happy to be back. There were travel stories, questions, and laughter. Oh, and Zeppole, little powdered sugar custard desserts that seemed the worst for travel. Everyone seemed to have an eye on the clock though. By 11pm the suite was quiet. Très unusual.
Mar 27, 2023
Mar 27, 2023 at 1:42 AM UTC
Tanagra! think not I forget
Thy beautifully-storey'd streets;
Be sure my memory bathes yet
In clear Thermodon, and yet greets
The blythe and liberal shepherd boy,
Whose sunny ***** swells with joy
When we accept his matted rushes
Upheaved with sylvan fruit; away he bounds, and blushes.
I promise to bring back with me
What thou with transport wilt receive,
The only proper gift for thee,
Of which no mortal shall bereave
In later times thy mouldering walls,
Until the last old turret falls;
A crown, a crown from Athens won!
A crown no god can wear, beside Latona's son.
There may be cities who refuse
To their own child the honours due,
And look ungently on the Muse;
But ever shall those cities rue
The dry, unyielding, niggard breast,
Offering no nourishment, no rest,
To that young head which soon shall rise
Disdainfully, in might and glory, to the skies.
Sweetly where cavern'd Dirce flows
Do white-arm'd maidens chaunt my lay,
Flapping the while with laurel-rose
The honey-gathering tribes away;
And sweetly, sweetly, Attick tongues
Lisp your Corinna's early songs;
To her with feet more graceful come
The verses that have dwelt in kindred ******* at home.
O let thy children lean aslant
Against the tender mother's knee,
And gaze into her face, and want
To know what magic there can be
In words that urge some eyes to dance,
While others as in holy trance
Look up to heaven; be such my praise!
Why linger? I must haste, or lose the Delphick bays.
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A message to the boy minding the pastry,
one finger in each the webs
of cosmic lust and mercy,
waiting to be told it is fine to want
the best for everybody:
It is fine. It is fine.
What are you?
Were you born here?
No, I was born on the banks of the Seine,
beside the boneyard of the nameless,
in the pits of Delhi with
the blood of roosters on my toes,
***** who pecked one another
to their entrails because the
colony of the living sunrise was
shrunk to a pocket of feathers and fire
by some wire, wood, and staples.
I was born in the Academy of Athens,
where Socrates made salsa with hemlock
and danced into a dialogue,
because the grocery habaneros were all too tender,
and St. Augustine could offer no alternative.
Never forget - we were born to unfairness;
unfair as long as our appetites differ,
or we exhaust sooner than one another,
or we grip one another differently and come at different times.
The only person less fair than me is God.
But my justice - that is perfect,
like my voice, which has none of a gavel's
authority. Or my heart: which was manacled by giants
and sentenced to be pecked by a flying poem, a girl
with hair she won't comb, a song about Jerusalem.
Fair. **** fair.
I am fair as long as I can wait, quiet -
silent as the sand, sunburned and happy,
to be drawn into
that kindness, the Atlantic - - -
the flip and twist of the sea.
Oct 24, 2011
Oct 24, 2011 at 4:01 PM UTC