Oil on limbs, maybe a rancid smell as on the chapel’s oil-press here, as on the rough pores of the unturning stone.
Oil on hair wreathed in rope and maybe other scents unknown to us poor and rich and statuettes offering small breasts with their fingers.
Oil in the sun the leaves shuddered when the stranger stopped and the silence weighed between the knees. The coins fell: “In the goddess” name I summon you…”
Oil on the shoulders and the flexing waist legs grass-dappled, and that would in the sun as vespers sounded as I spoke in the church yard with a crippled man.
*Keeley and Sherrard’s note to this Seferis poem: See Herodotus, I, 199: “When a woman has once taken her place there, she does not go home before some stranger has thrown money into her lap and has had intercourse with her outside the temple; but as he throws the money, he must say: ‘I summon you in the name of the goddess Mylitta’ (that is, the Assyrian name for Aphrodite)…There is a custom like this in some parts of Cyprus.”
Haha, thanks Elisabeth—it does look like I have a one-track mind leading straight to the ocean’s edge, doesn’t it, though it’s difficult to approach Coleridge’s powerful visionary poetry; maybe some laudanum spiked with ouzo would help.
I'll have to skip the laudanum for reasons only a romantic would understand but the ouzo and the cliff definitely, a fitting finale to my Magnus Opus Definitely Not Lemmings.
Vassilis,
ReplyDeletethough getting closer and closer to old age, I still mistaken them for dangerous shoals.
And you think you're hopeless..
Nicely done...
ReplyDeleteThe logbook of a born navigator.
ReplyDeletewave after wave after wave
ReplyDeletegoddess after goddess after goddess
in the froth or in the foam
there is no end to it
; until there is
Comrades,
ReplyDeleteIN THE GODDESS’ NAME I SUMMON YOU. . .*
Oil on limbs,
maybe a rancid smell
as on the chapel’s
oil-press here,
as on the rough pores
of the unturning stone.
Oil on hair
wreathed in rope
and maybe other scents
unknown to us
poor and rich
and statuettes offering
small breasts with their fingers.
Oil in the sun
the leaves shuddered
when the stranger stopped
and the silence weighed
between the knees.
The coins fell:
“In the goddess” name I summon you…”
Oil on the shoulders
and the flexing waist
legs grass-dappled,
and that would in the sun
as vespers sounded
as I spoke in the church yard
with a crippled man.
*Keeley and Sherrard’s note to this Seferis poem: See Herodotus, I, 199: “When a woman has once taken her place there, she does not go home before some stranger has thrown money into her lap and has had intercourse with her outside the temple; but as he throws the money, he must say: ‘I summon you in the name of the goddess Mylitta’ (that is, the Assyrian name for Aphrodite)…There is a custom like this in some parts of Cyprus.”
great poem Vassilis.. and WOW what a custom that is!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Aditya for the positive reinforcement--as for that curious custom, it does sound rather aphrodisiacal, doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteHahaha.. It sure does and you are living up to your words!!
ReplyDeleteWhat's the saying, Vassilis, after Coleridge, all those immortal nipples: water water everywhere and not a drop to drink. Great poem.
DeleteHaha, thanks Elisabeth—it does look like I have a one-track mind leading straight to the ocean’s edge, doesn’t it, though it’s difficult to approach Coleridge’s powerful visionary poetry; maybe some laudanum spiked with ouzo would help.
ReplyDeleteThe laudanum would be a fine start. And then the ouzo and -- over the cliff. Ever so softly. Never abandoning the divinely blest single track.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to skip the laudanum for reasons only a romantic would understand but the ouzo and the cliff definitely, a fitting finale to my Magnus Opus Definitely Not Lemmings.
ReplyDelete