Gotta Match?

Issued in 1992, an 18 x 25 cm set of eighteen matchboxes illustrating the fables of Ivan Krylov bought at the Kopanaki open-air market some years back from Pontic Greek immigrants from the former USSR. Yours truly being a pushover for fairy tales and fables, how could I not buy this exquisite little item once I saw it among all the other paraphernalia this family had brought with them to Greece?

 
Fables included are The Broom, The Cat and the Cook, The Cock and the Pearl, The Cuckoo and the Cock, The Dragonfly and the Ant, The Eagle and the Mole, The Elephant and the Pug, The Fox and the Grapes, The Industrious Bear, The Lion and the Fox, The Mirror and the Monkey, The Monkey and the Spectacles, The Quartet, The Raven and the Fox, The Swan, the Pike and the Crayfish, The Swine under the Oak, The Two Dogs, The Wolf and the Stork.
 
 
 

Inscape

Large windows

To let the light in,

No small wonder

We have to see. 

The Usual Suspects

“Those who will some day live here where we end—

should the blood happen to darken in their memory and overflow—”

—George Seferis, from Mythistorema

Only a passing

Glance in the dark

But we can tell

They are backing

Into the picture again

Before something else develops.

March 19, 2011: The Day the Laptop etc. Went Away

Due to unforseen circumstances (in this case, a burglary at our house), my posts will be restricted until I can get a replacement for my stolen laptop. That might be easier than recovering all the data I had on it since I was stupid enough not to have backed up everything onto my external hard drive.

Paradise, As in Green Cheese

—after Huuklyeand Cinquor

Poets weaned on bucolic should return

Every spring to old familiar meadows where

Transmogrified into sheep, they munch

On sweet, heavenly grass and dream

Of idyllic shepherds suckling their teats

Week after week.