Προσευχή Με Κακό Καιρό

Prayer In Bad Weather

by God, I don't know what to

Charles Bukowski

Το αλαζονικό απομεινάρι της νύχτας

Αυτό το μπλογκ έχει πολλές ελλείψεις.


Σοβαρές ελλείψεις.

Δεν έχει, ας πούμε, αρκετές γάτες.


Καλό θα ήταν να έχει περισσότερες γάτες.



Ode to the Cat
Pablo Neruda

Translation by Linh Dinh

The animals
were imperfect,
long-tailed, dismal
in the head.
Little by little
they composed themselves,
becoming a landscape,
gaining spots, grace, flight.
The cat,
only the cat,
appeared complete
and proud:
born completely
finished,
it walks alone and knows what it wants.

Man wants to be a fish and a bird,
the snake would rather have wings,
the dog is a lost lion,
the engineer wants to be a poet,
the fly studies the swallow,
the poet tries to imitate the fly,
but the cat
wants only to be cat,
and every cat is cat
from whiskers to tail,
from hunches to live rat,
from night to its yellow eyes.

There’s no entity
like it,
neither moon nor flower
has its construction:
it’s a solitary thing
like the sun or a topaz,
and the supple line
of its contour,
firm and delicate, is like
the prow line of a ship.
Its yellow eyes
leave only
a crack
to stuff the coins of the night.

O little
emperor without globe,
conqueror without country,
tiny tiger of the living room, sultan
groom of a sky
of erotic tiles,
the wind of love
in the open air
you demand
when you pass
and pose, placing
four delicate feet
on the floor,
sniffing,
doubting
every earthly thing,
since everything
is filthy
for the cat’s immaculate feet.

O independent beast of the home,
arrogant remnant of night,
lazy, gymnastic
and alien,
most profound cat,
secret police
of dwellings,
emblem
of a lost velvet,
there’s probably no
enigma
to your manner,
perhaps you’re not mysterious,
the entire world knows you and you belong
to the least mysterious inhabitant,
perhaps everyone believes he’s the master,
owner, uncle
of the cat, companion,
colleague,
disciple or friend
of the cat.

I no.
I don’t buy it.
I don’t know the cat.
I know everything, life and its archipelago,
the sea and the unfathomable city,
botany,
the harem and its excess,
virtues and flaws of mathematics,
the world’s volcanic veins,
the unreal carapace of crocodiles,
the hidden goodness of firemen,
the blue atavism of priests,
but I cannot figure out the cat.
My reasoning slips before its indifference,
its eyes with their golden numbers.

(το πρωτότυπο εδώ)

Thomas Gainsborough, Six Studies of a Cat, 1765-1769

Φλερτάροντας με την υπερκόπωση

Ο Robert Louis Stevenson λέει κάπου ότι η ελπίδα είναι ένα παιδί, ένα τυφλό, απερίσκεπτο, ευχάριστο αγόρι, που ξέρει μόνο να κυνηγάει λιχουδιές.

Τι το κάνεις αυτό το παιδί άραγε;


Πρωί-πρωί μέσα στο αυτοκίνητο ορμάει η Λίνα Νικολακοπούλου κραδαίνοντας ένα μωρό.

Ένα μωρό, μωρό παιδί χρόνια έχει κρυφτεί στο σώμα μου
τρώει μπογιές, καρδιές, φωτιές, χιόνια
και την κολώνια μου
Ένα μωρό, μωρό παιδί χρόνια έχει κλειδιά απ' το σπίτι μου
κάνει ζημιές, βρωμιές, χαρές, ψώνια
κάτω απ' τη μύτη μου

Όταν λέει πεθαίνω τρέχω του μαθαίνω τι θα πει μωρό μου
Μπορώ

Όλα τα μωρά κλαίνε έτσι δεν είναι;


Διάβασα ένα καταπληκτικό βιβλίο γιά έναν καταπληκτικό άνθρωπο. Ο John Pendlebury αναδύεται κινηματογραφικός, γενναίος, αληθινός Άγγλος ευγενής, ερωτευμένος με την αρχαιολογία, αυτός που θα θέλαμε να είμαστε. Όταν τέλειωσα το βιβλίο μου έμεινε στο στόμα μιά γεύση σκόνης. Από τα αρχεία που σκάλισε η Imogen Grundon, από τους περίπατους και τις ανασκαφές του John, από τον κουρνιαχτό της Μάχης της Κρήτης.

Την ζήλεψα την Grundon που είχε να ασχοληθεί με έναν ήρωα τόσο αναμφίβολα συμπαθή.

Θυμήθηκα την αγαπημένη μου Carol Ann Duffy που γράφει στο ποίημά της The Biographer:


Because you are dead,
I stand at your desk,
my fingers caressing the grooves in the wood
your initials made;
and I manage a quote,
echo one of your lines in the small, blue room
where an early daguerreotype shows you
excitedly staring out
from behind your face,
the thing that made you yourself
still visibly there,
like a hood and a cloak of light.
The first four words that I write are your name.

I'm a passionate man
with a big advance
who's loved your work since he was a boy;
but the night
I slept alone in your bed,
the end of a fire going out in the grate,
I came awake -
certain, had we ever met,
you wouldn't have wanted me,
or needed me,
would barely have noticed me at all.
Guilt and rage
hardened me then,
and later I felt your dislike
chilling the air
as I drifted away.
Your wallpaper green and crimson and gold.

Δεν έχει κεράσια αυτή την εποχή.

Λουκάς Γεραλής, Νεκρή φύση με κεράσια