" Little recipe" Ann-ie Jo Ly

A day of painful thoughts and sorrow, take delicately two of your tears and blow.
 Go outside and run, in the sickly sun.
  In a tiny movement, draw a drop of rain through the windy moment with your fingerprint.
 Then wait for the magic print and smile at the rainbow.

"Châtiment d'une Infidèle" Ann-ie Jo Ly

Je veux m'anéantir dans le ciel de son 
 âme 
Et je veux me noyer dans le lac de ses  
 yeux 
 Je veux m'ensevelir sous la caresse qui 
 damne 
  Et je veux m'éveiller sous le souffle de l'aveu 

"je veux " Giannis Mavromatidis

Je veux devenir tien exister,vivre 
et me répendre autour de toi, sur toi, en toi, 
Je veux devenir ton trophee de victoire, dans l'interminable guerre  
des fantasmes exageres et non consommes de l'amour
Je veux devenir la mane de tes reves,de tes passions et de tes  
desirs les plus barbares, les plus obscures ,innomables et 
blasphemes de tes "vouloirs
Je veux devenir ton tresor cache et que tu me depenses gouluement 
et sans retenue dans les orgies interminables et degradantes de 
sessions sans logique 
Je veux devenir poignard dans ta main, que tu dechires avec moi en 
mille morceaux tes nuits et que tu marques de cicatrices le velours 
des draps de ma solitude
Je veux devenir la proie qui se debat ensanglantee dans le piege 
meurtrier de ta beaute parce que la mort par elle est preferable a 
une vie sans elle.....


 

"Clotilde" Guillaume Apollinaire

Anemone and columbine

Where gloom has lain

Opened in gardens

Between love and disdain

Made somber by the sun

Our shadows meet

Until the sun

Is squandered by night

Gods of living water

Let down their hair

And now you must follow

A craving for shadows

"The Tempest" William Shakespeare

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As i foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

"The blessing" Baudelaire

When, by decree of the sovereign power,
The poet makes his appearance in a bored world,
With fists clenched at the horror, his outraged mother
Call on a pitying God, at whome these curses are hurled:
"Why was I not made to litter a brood of vipers
Rather than conceive this human mockery?
My curses on that night whose ephemeral pleasures
Filled my womb with this avenging treachery!
Since I must be chosen among all women that are
To bear the lifetime's grudge of a sullen husband,
And since I cannot get rid of this caricature,
--Fling it away lie old letters to be burned,
On what you have devised for my punishment
I will let all you hate of me rebound,
I will torture this stunted growth until its bent
Branches let fall every blighted but to the ground!"
And so she prepares for herself in Hell's pit
A place on the pyre made for a mother's crimes,
Blind, in the fury of her foaming hatred,
To the meaning and purpose of the eternal designs.
Meanwhile, under the care of an unseen angel,
The disinherited Child revels in the sun's
Bright force; all that he eats and drinks can fill
Him with memories of the food that was heaven's.
The wind his plaything, any cloud a friend,
The Spirit watching can only weep to see
How in childhood his way of the cross is lightened
With the wild bird-song of his innocent gaiety.
Thos he would love look at him with suspicion
Or else, emboldened by his calm, experiment
Wit various possible methods of exciting derision
by trying out their cruelty on his complaint.
They mix ashes or unspeakable filth with the bread
And the wine of his daily communion, drop
Whatever he may have touched with affected dread,
And studiously avoid wherever he may step.
His mistress, parading her contempt in the street,
Cries: "Since he finds my beauty a thing to worship,
I will be one of the ancient idols he talks about,
Am make myself with gold out of the same workshop!
I will never have enough of his kneelings and offerings
Until I am sure that the choice foods, the wines,
The 'nard,' the "incense,' the myrrh that he brings
He brings as other men would to the Virgin's shrines.
And when I am sick to death of trying not to laugh
At the farch of my black masses, I try the force
Of the hand he calls'frail,' my nails will dig a path
Like harpies', to the heart that beats for me, of course!
Like a nestling trembling and palpitating
I will pull that red heart out of his breast
And throw it down for my favourite dog's eating
--Let him do whatever he likes with the rest!"
A serene piety, lifting the poet's gaze,
Reveals heaven opening on a shining throne,
And the lower vision of the world's ravening rage
Is shut off by the sheer lightnings of his brain.
"Be blessed, oh my God, who givest suffering
As the only divine remedy for our folly,
As the highest and purest essence preparing
The strong in spirit for ecstasies most holy.
I know that among the uplifted legions
Of saints, a place awaits the Poet's arrival,
And that among the Powers, Virtues, Dominations
He too is summoned to Heaven's festival.
I know that sorrow is the one human strength
On which neither earth nor hell can impose,
And that all the universe and all time's length
Must be wound into the mystic crown for my brows.
But all the treasury of buried Palmyra,
The earth's unknown metals, the sea's pearls,
Mounted by Thy hand, would be deemed an inferior
Glitter, to his diadem that shines without jewels.
For Thou knowest it will be made of purest light
Drawn from the holy hearth of every primal ray,
To which all human eyes, if they were one bright
Eye, are only a tarnished mirror's fading day!"

"A Death-Bed" Rudyard Kipling

This is the State above the Law.
The State exists for the State alone."
[This is a gland at the back of the jaw,
And an answering lump by the collar-bone.]

Some die shouting in gas or fire;
Some die silent, by shell and shot.
Some die desperate, caught on the wire -
Some die suddenly. This will not.

"Regis suprema voluntas Lex"
[It will follow the regular course of--throats.]
Some die pinned by the broken decks,
Some die sobbing between the boats.

Some die eloquent, pressed to death
By the sliding trench as their friends can hear
Some die wholly in half a breath.
Some--give trouble for half a year.

"There is neither Evil nor Good in life
Except as the needs of the State ordain."
[Since it is rather too late for the knife,
All we can do is to mask the pain.]

Some die saintly in faith and hope--
One died thus in a prison-yard--
Some die broken by rape or the rope;
Some die easily. This dies hard.

"I will dash to pieces who bar my way.
Woe to the traitor! Woe to the weak! "
[Let him write what he wishes to say.
It tires him out if he tries to speak.]

Some die quietly. Some abound
In loud self-pity. Others spread
Bad morale through the cots around .
This is a type that is better dead.

"The war was forced on me by my foes.
All that I sought was the right to live."
[Don't be afraid of a triple dose;
The pain will neutralize all we give.

Here are the needles. See that he dies
While the effects of the drug endure. . . .
What is the question he asks with his eyes?--
Yes, All-Highest, to God, be sure.]

"Paracelsus in Excelsis" Ezra Pound

Being no longer human, why should i
Pretend humanity or don the frail attire?
Men have i known and men, but never one
Was grown so free an essence, or become
So simply element as what i am.

The mist goes from the mirror and i see.
Behold! the world of forms is swept beneath -
Turmoil grown visible beneath our peace,
And we that are grown formless, rise above -
Fluids intangible that have been men,
We seem as statues round whose high-risen base
Some overflowing river is run mad,
In us alone the element of calm.

"Long winter night" a Chinese poem from Ryokan

Its all i think of: of when i was young,
reading books in the empty temple hall -
refilling the lamp again and again with oil,
never lamenting the long winter night.

"Ολονυχτία" Νικηφόρος Βρεττάκος

Δε με κατάλαβες
όλη τη νύχτα ήμουνα πλάι σου,
προσπαθούσα να κλείσω τα παράθυρα,
πάλευα – όλη νύχτα.

Ο αγέρας επέμενε.

Άπλωσα τότε
τις παλάμες μου πάνω σου
σαν δύο φύλλα ουρανού και σε σκέπασα.

Έπειτα βγήκα στον εξώστη και κοίταζα
δίχως χέρια τον κόσμο.

"Μαθαινεις" Jorge Luis Borges

Μετά από λίγο μαθαίνεις
την ανεπαίσθητη διαφορά
ανάμεσα στο να κρατάς το χέρι
και να αλυσοδένεις μια ψυχή.

Και μαθαίνεις πως Αγάπη δε σημαίνει στηρίζομαι
Και συντροφικότητα δε σημαίνει ασφάλεια

Και αρχίζεις να μαθαίνεις
πως τα φιλιά δεν είναι συμβόλαια
Και τα δώρα δεν είναι υποσχέσεις

Και αρχίζεις να δέχεσαι τις ήττες σου
με το κεφάλι ψηλά και τα μάτια ορθάνοιχτα
Με τη χάρη μιας γυναίκας
και όχι με τη θλίψη ενός παιδιού

Και μαθαίνεις να φτιάχνεις
όλους τους δρόμους σου στο Σήμερα,
γιατί το έδαφος του Αύριο
είναι πολύ ανασφαλές για σχέδια
…και τα όνειρα πάντα βρίσκουν τον τρόπο
να γκρεμίζονται στη μέση της διαδρομής.

Μετά από λίγο καιρό μαθαίνεις…
Πως ακόμα κι η ζέστη του ήλιου
μπορεί να σου κάνει κακό.

Έτσι φτιάχνεις τον κήπο σου εσύ
Αντί να περιμένεις κάποιον
να σου φέρει λουλούδια

Και μαθαίνεις ότι, αλήθεια, μπορείς να αντέξεις

Και ότι, αλήθεια, έχεις δύναμη

Και ότι, αλήθεια, αξίζεις

Και μαθαίνεις… μαθαίνεις

…με κάθε αντίο μαθαίνεις.

"Alastor: Or, the Spirit of Solitude" Percy Bysshe Shelley

EARTH, Ocean, Air, belovèd brotherhood!
   If our great Mother has imbued my soul
   With aught of natural piety to feel
   Your love, and recompense the boon with mine;
   If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even,
   With sunset and its gorgeous ministers,
   And solemn midnight's tingling silentness;
   If Autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood,
   And Winter robing with pure snow and crowns
   Of starry ice the gray grass and bare boughs;                      10
   If Spring's voluptuous pantings when she breathes
   Her first sweet kisses,--have been dear to me;
   If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast
   I consciously have injured, but still loved
   And cherished these my kindred; then forgive
   This boast, belovèd brethren, and withdraw
   No portion of your wonted favor now!

     Mother of this unfathomable world!
   Favor my solemn song, for I have loved 
   Thee ever, and thee only; I have watched                           20
   Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps,
   And my heart ever gazes on the depth
   Of thy deep mysteries. I have made my bed
   In charnels and on coffins, where black death
   Keeps record of the trophies won from thee,
   Hoping to still these obstinate questionings
   Of thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghost,
   Thy messenger, to render up the tale
   Of what we are. In lone and silent hours,
   When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness,               30
   Like an inspired and desperate alchemist
   Staking his very life on some dark hope,
   Have I mixed awful talk and asking looks
   With my most innocent love, until strange tears,
   Uniting with those breathless kisses, made
   Such magic as compels the charmèd night
   To render up thy charge; and, though ne'er yet
   Thou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary,
   Enough from incommunicable dream,
   And twilight phantasms, and deep noonday thought,                  40
   Has shone within me, that serenely now
   And moveless, as a long-forgotten lyre
   Suspended in the solitary dome
   Of some mysterious and deserted fane,
   I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain
   May modulate with murmurs of the air,
   And motions of the forests and the sea,
   And voice of living beings, and woven hymns
   Of night and day, and the deep heart of man.

     There was a Poet whose untimely tomb                             50
   No human hands with pious reverence reared,
   But the charmed eddies of autumnal winds
   Built o'er his mouldering bones a pyramid
   Of mouldering leaves in the waste wilderness:
   A lovely youth,--no mourning maiden decked
   With weeping flowers, or votive cypress wreath,
   The lone couch of his everlasting sleep:
   Gentle, and brave, and generous,--no lorn bard
   Breathed o'er his dark fate one melodious sigh:
   He lived, he died, he sung in solitude.                            60
   Strangers have wept to hear his passionate notes,
   And virgins, as unknown he passed, have pined
   And wasted for fond love of his wild eyes.
   The fire of those soft orbs has ceased to burn,
   And Silence, too enamoured of that voice,
   Locks its mute music in her rugged cell.

     By solemn vision and bright silver dream
   His infancy was nurtured. Every sight
   And sound from the vast earth and ambient air
   Sent to his heart its choicest impulses.                           70
   The fountains of divine philosophy
   Fled not his thirsting lips, and all of great,
   Or good, or lovely, which the sacred past
   In truth or fable consecrates, he felt
   And knew. When early youth had passed, he left
   His cold fireside and alienated home
   To seek strange truths in undiscovered lands.
   Many a wide waste and tangled wilderness
   Has lured his fearless steps; and he has bought
   With his sweet voice and eyes, from savage men,                    80
   His rest and food. Nature's most secret steps
   He like her shadow has pursued, where'er
   The red volcano overcanopies
   Its fields of snow and pinnacles of ice
   With burning smoke, or where bitumen lakes
   On black bare pointed islets ever beat
   With sluggish surge, or where the secret caves,
   Rugged and dark, winding among the springs
   Of fire and poison, inaccessible
   To avarice or pride, their starry domes                            90
   Of diamond and of gold expand above
   Numberless and immeasurable halls,
   Frequent with crystal column, and clear shrines
   Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite.
   Nor had that scene of ampler majesty
   Than gems or gold, the varying roof of heaven
   And the green earth, lost in his heart its claims
   To love and wonder; he would linger long
   In lonesome vales, making the wild his home,
   Until the doves and squirrels would partake                       100
   From his innocuous band his bloodless food,
   Lured by the gentle meaning of his looks,
   And the wild antelope, that starts whene'er
   The dry leaf rustles in the brake, suspend
   Her timid steps, to gaze upon a form
   More graceful than her own.

                                His wandering step,
   Obedient to high thoughts, has visited
   The awful ruins of the days of old:
   Athens, and Tyre, and Balbec, and the waste
   Where stood Jerusalem, the fallen towers                          110
   Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids,
   Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of strange,
   Sculptured on alabaster obelisk
   Or jasper tomb or mutilated sphinx,
   Dark Æthiopia in her desert hills
   Conceals. Among the ruined temples there,
   Stupendous columns, and wild images
   Of more than man, where marble daemons watch
   The Zodiac's brazen mystery, and dead men
   Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around,                120
   He lingered, poring on memorials
   Of the world's youth: through the long burning day
   Gazed on those speechless shapes; nor, when the moon
   Filled the mysterious halls with floating shades
   Suspended he that task, but ever gazed
   And gazed, till meaning on his vacant mind
   Flashed like strong inspiration, and he saw
   The thrilling secrets of the birth of time.

     Meanwhile an Arab maiden brought his food,
   Her daily portion, from her father's tent,                        130
   And spread her matting for his couch, and stole
   From duties and repose to tend his steps,
   Enamoured, yet not daring for deep awe
   To speak her love, and watched his nightly sleep,
   Sleepless herself, to gaze upon his lips
   Parted in slumber, whence the regular breath
   Of innocent dreams arose; then, when red morn
   Made paler the pale moon, to her cold home
   Wildered, and wan, and panting, she returned.

     The Poet, wandering on, through Arabie,                         140
   And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste,
   And o'er the aërial mountains which pour down
   Indus and Oxus from their icy caves,
   In joy and exultation held his way;
   Till in the vale of Cashmire, far within
   Its loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine
   Beneath the hollow rocks a natural bower,
   Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretched
   His languid limbs. A vision on his sleep
   There came, a dream of hopes that never yet                       150
   Had flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veilèd maid
   Sate near him, talking in low solemn tones.
   Her voice was like the voice of his own soul
   Heard in the calm of thought; its music long,
   Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held
   His inmost sense suspended in its web
   Of many-colored woof and shifting hues.
   Knowledge and truth and virtue were her theme,
   And lofty hopes of divine liberty,
   Thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy,                         160
   Herself a poet. Soon the solemn mood
   Of her pure mind kindled through all her frame
   A permeating fire; wild numbers then
   She raised, with voice stifled in tremulous sobs
   Subdued by its own pathos; her fair hands
   Were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harp
   Strange symphony, and in their branching veins
   The eloquent blood told an ineffable tale.
   The beating of her heart was heard to fill
   The pauses of her music, and her breath                           170
   Tumultuously accorded with those fits
   Of intermitted song. Sudden she rose,
   As if her heart impatiently endured
   Its bursting burden; at the sound he turned,
   And saw by the warm light of their own life
   Her glowing limbs beneath the sinuous veil
   Of woven wind, her outspread arms now bare,
   Her dark locks floating in the breath of night,
   Her beamy bending eyes, her parted lips
   Outstretched, and pale, and quivering eagerly.                    180
   His strong heart sunk and sickened with excess
   Of love. He reared his shuddering limbs, and quelled
   His gasping breath, and spread his arms to meet
   Her panting bosom:--she drew back awhile,
   Then, yielding to the irresistible joy,
   With frantic gesture and short breathless cry
   Folded his frame in her dissolving arms.
   Now blackness veiled his dizzy eyes, and night
   Involved and swallowed up the vision; sleep,
   Like a dark flood suspended in its course,                        190
   Rolled back its impulse on his vacant brain.

     Roused by the shock, he started from his trance--
   The cold white light of morning, the blue moon
   Low in the west, the clear and garish hills,
   The distinct valley and the vacant woods,
   Spread round him where he stood. Whither have fled
   The hues of heaven that canopied his bower
   Of yesternight? The sounds that soothed his sleep,
   The mystery and the majesty of Earth,
   The joy, the exultation? His wan eyes                             200
   Gaze on the empty scene as vacantly
   As ocean's moon looks on the moon in heaven.
   The spirit of sweet human love has sent
   A vision to the sleep of him who spurned
   Her choicest gifts. He eagerly pursues
   Beyond the realms of dream that fleeting shade;
   He overleaps the bounds. Alas! alas!
   Were limbs and breath and being intertwined
   Thus treacherously? Lost, lost, forever lost
   In the wide pathless desert of dim sleep,                         210
   That beautiful shape! Does the dark gate of death
   Conduct to thy mysterious paradise,
   O Sleep? Does the bright arch of rainbow clouds
   And pendent mountains seen in the calm lake
   Lead only to a black and watery depth,
   While death's blue vault with loathliest vapors hung,
   Where every shade which the foul grave exhales
   Hides its dead eye from the detested day,
   Conducts, O Sleep, to thy delightful realms?
   This doubt with sudden tide flowed on his heart;                  220
   The insatiate hope which it awakened stung
   His brain even like despair.

                                 While daylight held
   The sky, the Poet kept mute conference
   With his still soul. At night the passion came,
   Like the fierce fiend of a distempered dream,
   And shook him from his rest, and led him forth
   Into the darkness. As an eagle, grasped
   In folds of the green serpent, feels her breast
   Burn with the poison, and precipitates
   Through night and day, tempest, and calm, and cloud,              230
   Frantic with dizzying anguish, her blind flight
   O'er the wide aëry wilderness: thus driven
   By the bright shadow of that lovely dream,
   Beneath the cold glare of the desolate night,
   Through tangled swamps and deep precipitous dells,
   Startling with careless step the moon-light snake,
   He fled. Red morning dawned upon his flight,
   Shedding the mockery of its vital hues
   Upon his cheek of death. He wandered on
   Till vast Aornos seen from Petra's steep                          240
   Hung o'er the low horizon like a cloud;
   Through Balk, and where the desolated tombs
   Of Parthian kings scatter to every wind
   Their wasting dust, wildly he wandered on,
   Day after day, a weary waste of hours,
   Bearing within his life the brooding care
   That ever fed on its decaying flame.
   And now his limbs were lean; his scattered hair,
   Sered by the autumn of strange suffering,
   Sung dirges in the wind; his listless hand                        250
   Hung like dead bone within its withered skin;
   Life, and the lustre that consumed it, shone,
   As in a furnace burning secretly,
   From his dark eyes alone. The cottagers,
   Who ministered with human charity
   His human wants, beheld with wondering awe
   Their fleeting visitant. The mountaineer,
   Encountering on some dizzy precipice
   That spectral form, deemed that the Spirit of Wind,
   With lightning eyes, and eager breath, and feet                   260
   Disturbing not the drifted snow, had paused
   In its career; the infant would conceal
   His troubled visage in his mother's robe
   In terror at the glare of those wild eyes,
   To remember their strange light in many a dream
   Of after times; but youthful maidens, taught
   By nature, would interpret half the woe
   That wasted him, would call him with false names
   Brother and friend, would press his pallid hand
   At parting, and watch, dim through tears, the path                270
   Of his departure from their father's door.

     At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore
   He paused, a wide and melancholy waste
   Of putrid marshes. A strong impulse urged
   His steps to the sea-shore. A swan was there,
   Beside a sluggish stream among the reeds.
   It rose as he approached, and, with strong wings
   Scaling the upward sky, bent its bright course
   High over the immeasurable main.
   His eyes pursued its flight:--'Thou hast a home,                  280
   Beautiful bird! thou voyagest to thine home,
   Where thy sweet mate will twine her downy neck
   With thine, and welcome thy return with eyes
   Bright in the lustre of their own fond joy.
   And what am I that I should linger here,
   With voice far sweeter than thy dying notes,
   Spirit more vast than thine, frame more attuned
   To beauty, wasting these surpassing powers
   In the deaf air, to the blind earth, and heaven
   That echoes not my thoughts?' A gloomy smile                      290
   Of desperate hope wrinkled his quivering lips.
   For sleep, he knew, kept most relentlessly
   Its precious charge, and silent death exposed,
   Faithless perhaps as sleep, a shadowy lure,
   With doubtful smile mocking its own strange charms.

     Startled by his own thoughts, he looked around.
   There was no fair fiend near him, not a sight
   Or sound of awe but in his own deep mind.
   A little shallop floating near the shore
   Caught the impatient wandering of his gaze.                       300
   It had been long abandoned, for its sides
   Gaped wide with many a rift, and its frail joints
   Swayed with the undulations of the tide.
   A restless impulse urged him to embark
   And meet lone Death on the drear ocean's waste;
   For well he knew that mighty Shadow loves
   The slimy caverns of the populous deep.

     The day was fair and sunny; sea and sky
   Drank its inspiring radiance, and the wind
   Swept strongly from the shore, blackening the waves.              310
   Following his eager soul, the wanderer
   Leaped in the boat; he spread his cloak aloft
   On the bare mast, and took his lonely seat,
   And felt the boat speed o'er the tranquil sea
   Like a torn cloud before the hurricane.

     As one that in a silver vision floats
   Obedient to the sweep of odorous winds
   Upon resplendent clouds, so rapidly
   Along the dark and ruffled waters fled
   The straining boat. A whirlwind swept it on,                      320
   With fierce gusts and precipitating force,
   Through the white ridges of the chafèd sea.
   The waves arose. Higher and higher still
   Their fierce necks writhed beneath the tempest's scourge
   Like serpents struggling in a vulture's grasp.
   Calm and rejoicing in the fearful war
   Of wave ruining on wave, and blast on blast
   Descending, and black flood on whirlpool driven
   With dark obliterating course, he sate:
   As if their genii were the ministers                              330
   Appointed to conduct him to the light
   Of those belovèd eyes, the Poet sate,
   Holding the steady helm. Evening came on;
   The beams of sunset hung their rainbow hues
   High 'mid the shifting domes of sheeted spray
   That canopied his path o'er the waste deep;
   Twilight, ascending slowly from the east,
   Entwined in duskier wreaths her braided locks
   O'er the fair front and radiant eyes of Day;
   Night followed, clad with stars. On every side                    340
   More horribly the multitudinous streams
   Of ocean's mountainous waste to mutual war
   Rushed in dark tumult thundering, as to mock
   The calm and spangled sky. The little boat
   Still fled before the storm; still fled, like foam
   Down the steep cataract of a wintry river;
   Now pausing on the edge of the riven wave;
   Now leaving far behind the bursting mass
   That fell, convulsing ocean; safely fled--
   As if that frail and wasted human form                            350
   Had been an elemental god.

                               At midnight
   The moon arose; and lo! the ethereal cliffs
   Of Caucasus, whose icy summits shone
   Among the stars like sunlight, and around
   Whose caverned base the whirlpools and the waves
   Bursting and eddying irresistibly
   Rage and resound forever.--Who shall save?--
   The boat fled on,--the boiling torrent drove,--
   The crags closed round with black and jagged arms,
   The shattered mountain overhung the sea,                          360
   And faster still, beyond all human speed,
   Suspended on the sweep of the smooth wave,
   The little boat was driven. A cavern there
   Yawned, and amid its slant and winding depths
   Ingulfed the rushing sea. The boat fled on
   With unrelaxing speed.--'Vision and Love!'
   The Poet cried aloud, 'I have beheld
   The path of thy departure. Sleep and death
   Shall not divide us long.'

                               The boat pursued
   The windings of the cavern. Daylight shone                        370
   At length upon that gloomy river's flow;
   Now, where the fiercest war among the waves
   Is calm, on the unfathomable stream
   The boat moved slowly. Where the mountain, riven,
   Exposed those black depths to the azure sky,
   Ere yet the flood's enormous volume fell
   Even to the base of Caucasus, with sound
   That shook the everlasting rocks, the mass
   Filled with one whirlpool all that ample chasm;
   Stair above stair the eddying waters rose,                        380
   Circling immeasurably fast, and laved
   With alternating dash the gnarlèd roots
   Of mighty trees, that stretched their giant arms
   In darkness over it. I' the midst was left,
   Reflecting yet distorting every cloud,
   A pool of treacherous and tremendous calm.
   Seized by the sway of the ascending stream,
   With dizzy swiftness, round and round and round,
   Ridge after ridge the straining boat arose,
   Till on the verge of the extremest curve,                         390
   Where through an opening of the rocky bank
   The waters overflow, and a smooth spot
   Of glassy quiet 'mid those battling tides
   Is left, the boat paused shuddering.--Shall it sink
   Down the abyss? Shall the reverting stress
   Of that resistless gulf embosom it?
   Now shall it fall?--A wandering stream of wind
   Breathed from the west, has caught the expanded sail,
   And, lo! with gentle motion between banks
   Of mossy slope, and on a placid stream,                           400
   Beneath a woven grove, it sails, and, hark!
   The ghastly torrent mingles its far roar
   With the breeze murmuring in the musical woods.
   Where the embowering trees recede, and leave
   A little space of green expanse, the cove
   Is closed by meeting banks, whose yellow flowers
   Forever gaze on their own drooping eyes,
   Reflected in the crystal calm. The wave
   Of the boat's motion marred their pensive task,
   Which naught but vagrant bird, or wanton wind,                    410
   Or falling spear-grass, or their own decay
   Had e'er disturbed before. The Poet longed
   To deck with their bright hues his withered hair,
   But on his heart its solitude returned,
   And he forbore. Not the strong impulse hid
   In those flushed cheeks, bent eyes, and shadowy frame,
   Had yet performed its ministry; it hung
   Upon his life, as lightning in a cloud
   Gleams, hovering ere it vanish, ere the floods
   Of night close over it.

                            The noonday sun                          420
   Now shone upon the forest, one vast mass
   Of mingling shade, whose brown magnificence
   A narrow vale embosoms. There, huge caves,
   Scooped in the dark base of their aëry rocks,
   Mocking its moans, respond and roar forever.
   The meeting boughs and implicated leaves
   Wove twilight o'er the Poet's path, as, led
   By love, or dream, or god, or mightier Death,
   He sought in Nature's dearest haunt some bank,
   Her cradle and his sepulchre. More dark                           430
   And dark the shades accumulate. The oak,
   Expanding its immense and knotty arms,
   Embraces the light beech. The pyramids
   Of the tall cedar overarching frame
   Most solemn domes within, and far below,
   Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky,
   The ash and the acacia floating hang
   Tremulous and pale. Like restless serpents, clothed
   In rainbow and in fire, the parasites,
   Starred with ten thousand blossoms, flow around                   440
   The gray trunks, and, as gamesome infants' eyes,
   With gentle meanings, and most innocent wiles,
   Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love,
   These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs,
   Uniting their close union; the woven leaves
   Make network of the dark blue light of day
   And the night's noontide clearness, mutable
   As shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawns
   Beneath these canopies extend their swells,
   Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms                450
   Minute yet beautiful. One darkest glen
   Sends from its woods of musk-rose twined with jasmine
   A soul-dissolving odor to invite
   To some more lovely mystery. Through the dell
   Silence and Twilight here, twin-sisters, keep
   Their noonday watch, and sail among the shades,
   Like vaporous shapes half-seen; beyond, a well,
   Dark, gleaming, and of most translucent wave,
   Images all the woven boughs above,
   And each depending leaf, and every speck                          460
   Of azure sky darting between their chasms;
   Nor aught else in the liquid mirror laves
   Its portraiture, but some inconstant star,
   Between one foliaged lattice twinkling fair,
   Or painted bird, sleeping beneath the moon,
   Or gorgeous insect floating motionless,
   Unconscious of the day, ere yet his wings
   Have spread their glories to the gaze of noon.

   Hither the Poet came. His eyes beheld
   Their own wan light through the reflected lines                   470
   Of his thin hair, distinct in the dark depth
   Of that still fountain; as the human heart,
   Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave,
   Sees its own treacherous likeness there. He heard
   The motion of the leaves--the grass that sprung
   Startled and glanced and trembled even to feel
   An unaccustomed presence--and the sound
   Of the sweet brook that from the secret springs
   Of that dark fountain rose. A Spirit seemed
   To stand beside him--clothed in no bright robes                   480
   Of shadowy silver or enshrining light,
   Borrowed from aught the visible world affords
   Of grace, or majesty, or mystery;
   But undulating woods, and silent well,
   And leaping rivulet, and evening gloom
   Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming,
   Held commune with him, as if he and it
   Were all that was; only--when his regard
   Was raised by intense pensiveness--two eyes,
   Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought,                    490
   And seemed with their serene and azure smiles
   To beckon him.

                   Obedient to the light
   That shone within his soul, he went, pursuing
   The windings of the dell. The rivulet,
   Wanton and wild, through many a green ravine
   Beneath the forest flowed. Sometimes it fell
   Among the moss with hollow harmony
   Dark and profound. Now on the polished stones
   It danced, like childhood laughing as it went;
   Then, through the plain in tranquil wanderings crept,             500
   Reflecting every herb and drooping bud
   That overhung its quietness.--'O stream!
   Whose source is inaccessibly profound,
   Whither do thy mysterious waters tend?
   Thou imagest my life. Thy darksome stillness,
   Thy dazzling waves, thy loud and hollow gulfs,
   Thy searchless fountain and invisible course,
   Have each their type in me; and the wide sky
   And measureless ocean may declare as soon
   What oozy cavern or what wandering cloud                          510
   Contains thy waters, as the universe
   Tell where these living thoughts reside, when stretched
   Upon thy flowers my bloodless limbs shall waste
   I' the passing wind!'

                          Beside the grassy shore
   Of the small stream he went; he did impress
   On the green moss his tremulous step, that caught
   Strong shuddering from his burning limbs. As one
   Roused by some joyous madness from the couch
   Of fever, he did move; yet not like him
   Forgetful of the grave, where, when the flame                     520
   Of his frail exultation shall be spent,
   He must descend. With rapid steps he went
   Beneath the shade of trees, beside the flow
   Of the wild babbling rivulet; and now
   The forest's solemn canopies were changed
   For the uniform and lightsome evening sky.
   Gray rocks did peep from the spare moss, and stemmed
   The struggling brook; tall spires of windlestrae
   Threw their thin shadows down the rugged slope,
   And nought but gnarlèd roots of ancient pines                     530
   Branchless and blasted, clenched with grasping roots
   The unwilling soil. A gradual change was here
   Yet ghastly. For, as fast years flow away,
   The smooth brow gathers, and the hair grows thin
   And white, and where irradiate dewy eyes
   Had shone, gleam stony orbs:--so from his steps
   Bright flowers departed, and the beautiful shade
   Of the green groves, with all their odorous winds
   And musical motions. Calm he still pursued
   The stream, that with a larger volume now                         540
   Rolled through the labyrinthine dell; and there
   Fretted a path through its descending curves
   With its wintry speed. On every side now rose
   Rocks, which, in unimaginable forms,
   Lifted their black and barren pinnacles
   In the light of evening, and its precipice
   Obscuring the ravine, disclosed above,
   'Mid toppling stones, black gulfs and yawning caves,
   Whose windings gave ten thousand various tongues
   To the loud stream. Lo! where the pass expands                    550
   Its stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks,
   And seems with its accumulated crags
   To overhang the world; for wide expand
   Beneath the wan stars and descending moon
   Islanded seas, blue mountains, mighty streams,
   Dim tracts and vast, robed in the lustrous gloom
   Of leaden-colored even, and fiery hills
   Mingling their flames with twilight, on the verge
   Of the remote horizon. The near scene,
   In naked and severe simplicity,                                   560
   Made contrast with the universe. A pine,
   Rock-rooted, stretched athwart the vacancy
   Its swinging boughs, to each inconstant blast
   Yielding one only response at each pause
   In most familiar cadence, with the howl,
   The thunder and the hiss of homeless streams
   Mingling its solemn song, whilst the broad river
   Foaming and hurrying o'er its rugged path,
   Fell into that immeasurable void,
   Scattering its waters to the passing winds.                       570

     Yet the gray precipice and solemn pine
   And torrent were not all;--one silent nook
   Was there. Even on the edge of that vast mountain,
   Upheld by knotty roots and fallen rocks,
   It overlooked in its serenity
   The dark earth and the bending vault of stars.
   It was a tranquil spot that seemed to smile
   Even in the lap of horror. Ivy clasped
   The fissured stones with its entwining arms,
   And did embower with leaves forever green                         580
   And berries dark the smooth and even space
   Of its inviolated floor; and here
   The children of the autumnal whirlwind bore
   In wanton sport those bright leaves whose decay,
   Red, yellow, or ethereally pale,
   Rivals the pride of summer. 'T is the haunt
   Of every gentle wind whose breath can teach
   The wilds to love tranquillity. One step,
   One human step alone, has ever broken
   The stillness of its solitude; one voice                          590
   Alone inspired its echoes;--even that voice
   Which hither came, floating among the winds,
   And led the loveliest among human forms
   To make their wild haunts the depository
   Of all the grace and beauty that endued
   Its motions, render up its majesty,
   Scatter its music on the unfeeling storm,
   And to the damp leaves and blue cavern mould,
   Nurses of rainbow flowers and branching moss,
   Commit the colors of that varying cheek,                          600
   That snowy breast, those dark and drooping eyes.

     The dim and hornèd moon hung low, and poured
   A sea of lustre on the horizon's verge
   That overflowed its mountains. Yellow mist
   Filled the unbounded atmosphere, and drank
   Wan moonlight even to fulness; not a star
   Shone, not a sound was heard; the very winds,
   Danger's grim playmates, on that precipice
   Slept, clasped in his embrace.--O storm of death,
   Whose sightless speed divides this sullen night!                  610
   And thou, colossal Skeleton, that, still
   Guiding its irresistible career
   In thy devastating omnipotence,
   Art king of this frail world! from the red field
   Of slaughter, from the reeking hospital,
   The patriot's sacred couch, the snowy bed
   Of innocence, the scaffold and the throne,
   A mighty voice invokes thee! Ruin calls
   His brother Death! A rare and regal prey
   He hath prepared, prowling around the world;                      620
   Glutted with which thou mayst repose, and men
   Go to their graves like flowers or creeping worms,
   Nor ever more offer at thy dark shrine
   The unheeded tribute of a broken heart.

     When on the threshold of the green recess
   The wanderer's footsteps fell, he knew that death
   Was on him. Yet a little, ere it fled,
   Did he resign his high and holy soul
   To images of the majestic past,
   That paused within his passive being now,                         630
   Like winds that bear sweet music, when they breathe
   Through some dim latticed chamber. He did place
   His pale lean hand upon the rugged trunk
   Of the old pine; upon an ivied stone
   Reclined his languid head; his limbs did rest,
   Diffused and motionless, on the smooth brink
   Of that obscurest chasm;--and thus he lay,
   Surrendering to their final impulses
   The hovering powers of life. Hope and Despair,
   The torturers, slept; no mortal pain or fear                      640
   Marred his repose; the influxes of sense
   And his own being, unalloyed by pain,
   Yet feebler and more feeble, calmly fed
   The stream of thought, till he lay breathing there
   At peace, and faintly smiling. His last sight
   Was the great moon, which o'er the western line
   Of the wide world her mighty horn suspended,
   With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemed
   To mingle. Now upon the jagged hills
   It rests; and still as the divided frame                          650
   Of the vast meteor sunk, the Poet's blood,
   That ever beat in mystic sympathy
   With Nature's ebb and flow, grew feebler still;
   And when two lessening points of light alone
   Gleamed through the darkness, the alternate gasp
   Of his faint respiration scarce did stir
   The stagnate night:--till the minutest ray
   Was quenched, the pulse yet lingered in his heart.
   It paused--it fluttered. But when heaven remained
   Utterly black, the murky shades involved                          660
   An image silent, cold, and motionless,
   As their own voiceless earth and vacant air.
   Even as a vapor fed with golden beams
   That ministered on sunlight, ere the west
   Eclipses it, was now that wondrous frame--
   No sense, no motion, no divinity--
   A fragile lute, on whose harmonious strings
   The breath of heaven did wander--a bright stream
   Once fed with many-voicèd waves--a dream
   Of youth, which night and time have quenched forever--            670
   Still, dark, and dry, and unremembered now.

     Oh, for Medea's wondrous alchemy,
   Which wheresoe'er it fell made the earth gleam
   With bright flowers, and the wintry boughs exhale
   From vernal blooms fresh fragrance! Oh, that God,
   Profuse of poisons, would concede the chalice
   Which but one living man has drained, who now,
   Vessel of deathless wrath, a slave that feels
   No proud exemption in the blighting curse
   He bears, over the world wanders forever,                         680
   Lone as incarnate death! Oh, that the dream
   Of dark magician in his visioned cave,
   Raking the cinders of a crucible
   For life and power, even when his feeble hand
   Shakes in its last decay, were the true law
   Of this so lovely world! But thou art fled,
   Like some frail exhalation, which the dawn
   Robes in its golden beams,--ah! thou hast fled!
   The brave, the gentle and the beautiful,
   The child of grace and genius. Heartless things                   690
   Are done and said i' the world, and many worms
   And beasts and men live on, and mighty Earth
   From sea and mountain, city and wilderness,
   In vesper low or joyous orison,
   Lifts still its solemn voice:--but thou art fled--
   Thou canst no longer know or love the shapes
   Of this phantasmal scene, who have to thee
   Been purest ministers, who are, alas!
   Now thou art not! Upon those pallid lips
   So sweet even in their silence, on those eyes                     700
   That image sleep in death, upon that form
   Yet safe from the worm's outrage, let no tear
   Be shed--not even in thought. Nor, when those hues
   Are gone, and those divinest lineaments,
   Worn by the senseless wind, shall live alone
   In the frail pauses of this simple strain,
   Let not high verse, mourning the memory
   Of that which is no more, or painting's woe
   Or sculpture, speak in feeble imagery
   Their own cold powers. Art and eloquence,                         710
   And all the shows o' the world, are frail and vain
   To weep a loss that turns their lights to shade.
   It is a woe "too deep for tears," when all
   Is reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit,
   Whose light adorned the world around it, leaves
   Those who remain behind, not sobs or groans,
   The passionate tumult of a clinging hope;
   But pale despair and cold tranquillity,
   Nature's vast frame, the web of human things,
   Birth and the grave, that are not as they were.  

"London" William Blake

I wander thro' each charter'd street,

Near where the charter'd Thames does flow. 

And mark in every face I meet

Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,

In every Infants cry of fear,

In every voice: in every ban,

The mind-forg'd manacles I hear 

How the Chimney-sweepers cry

Every blackning Church appalls, 

And the hapless Soldiers sigh

Runs in blood down Palace walls 

But most thro' midnight streets I hear

How the youthful Harlots curse

Blasts the new-born Infants tear 

And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse 

" Αlesana" Marquis de Sade

Lurking in the shadows of the sun
no need to hide when you have such pride
as to reveal the deeds you've done
prison bars and needles
cannot stop a quill and ink of blood
nor hold back an imagination
as twisted as his own
blade in hand he then began
his torture and his fun
unrestrained by conscience
by morals or by law
deaths of innocent beauty
his craving and his want
chains and stains and torn wings
pretty white dresses soaked in red
like butterflies pinned and labeled on the wall
broken souls will turn to ash
but only feed his flame.

"O Seasons, O Chateaux" Arthur Rimbaud

O seasons, O chateaux,
Where is the flawless soul?

O seasons, O chateaux,

The magic study I pursued,
Of happiness, none can elude.

O may it live, each time
The Gallic cock makes rhyme.

Nothing else I desire,
It’s possessed my life entire.

That charm! It’s taken heart and soul
Scattered all my effort so.

Where’s the sense in what I say?
It makes the whole thing fly away!

O seasons, O chateaux!

O Seasons, O Chateaux

2. (From: Une Saison en Enfer)

O seasons, O chateaux!
Where is the flawless soul?

The magic study I pursued,
Of happiness, none can elude.

A health to it, each time
The Gallic cock makes rhyme.

Ah! There’s nothing I desire,
It’s possessed my life entire.

That charm has taken heart and soul
Scattered all my efforts so.

O seasons, O chateaux!

The hour of its flight, alas!
Will be the hour I pass.

O seasons, O chateaux!

"Αισιοδοξια" Κ.ΚΑΡΥΩΤΑΚΗΣ

Ας υποθέσουμε πως δεν έχουμε φτάσει
στο μαύρο αδιέξοδο, στην άβυσσο του νου.
Ας υποθέσουμε πως ήρθανε τα δάση
μ' αυτοκρατορικήν εξάρτηση πρωινού
θριάμβου, με πουλιά, με το φως τ' ουρανού,
και με τον ήλιο όπου θα τα διαπεράσει.

Ας υποθέσουμε πως είμαστε κει πέρα,
σε χώρες άγνωστες, της δύσης, του βορρά,
ενώ πετούμε το παλτό μας στον αέρα,
οι ξένοι βλέπουνε περίεργα, σοβαρά.
Για να μας δεχθεί κάποια λαίδη τρυφερά,
έδιωξε τους υπηρέτες της ολημέρα.

Ας υποθέσουμε πως του καπέλου ο γύρος
άξαφνα εφάρδυνε, μα εστένεψαν, κολλούν,
τα παντελόνια μας και, με του πτερνιστήρος
το πρόσταγμα, χιλιάδες άλογα κινούν.
Πηγαίνουμε -- σημαίες στον άνεμο χτυπούν --
ήρωες σταυροφόροι, σωτήρες του Σωτήρος.

Ας υποθέσουμε πως δεν έχουμε φτάσει
από εκατό δρόμους, στα όρια της σιγής,
κι ας τραγουδήσουμε, -- το τραγούδι να μοιάσει
νικητήριο σάλπισμα, ξέσπασμα κραυγής --
τους πυρρούς δαίμονες, στα έγκατα της γης,
και, ψηλά, τους ανθρώπους να διασκεδάσει.

"I like my body when it is with your" E.E. Cummings

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh … And eyes big love-crumbs,
and possibly i like the thrill
of under me you so quite new

"Her hair" Charles Baudelaire

O fleece, that down the neck waves to the nape!
O curls! O perfume nonchalant and rare!
O ecstasy! To fill this alcove shape
With memories that in these tresses sleep,
I would shake them like penions in the air!

Languorous Asia, burning Africa,
And a far world, defunct almost, absent,
Within your aromatic forest stay!
As other souls on music drift away,
Mine, O my love! still floats upon your scent.

I shall go there where, full of sap, both tree
And man swoon in the heat of the southern climates;
Strong tresses be the swell that carries me!
I dream upon your sea of amber
Of dazzling sails, of oarsmen, masts, and flames:

A sun-drenched and reverberating port,
Where I imbibe colour and sound and scent;
Where vessels, gliding through the gold and moiré,
Open their vast arms as they leave the shore
To clasp the pure and shimmering firmament.

I'll plunge my head, enamored of its pleasure,
In this black ocean where the other hides;
My subtle spirit then will know a measure
Of fertile idleness and fragrant leisure,
Lulled by the infinite rhythm of its tides!

Pavilion, of autumn-shadowed tresses spun,
You give me back the azure from afar;
And where the twisted locks are fringed with down
Lurk mingled odors I grow drunk upon
Of oil of coconut, of musk, and tar.

A long time! always! my hand in your hair
Will sow the stars of sapphire, pearl, ruby,
That you be never deaf to my desire,
My oasis and my gourd whence I aspire
To drink deep of the wine of memory.

"A bracelet" Robert Grayes

"Φθινοπώριασε" Αρθούρος Ρεμπώ

Φθινοπώριασε…
Προς τι όμως η ανάγκη για παντοτινό ήλιο;
Εμείς είμαστε στρατευμένοι στην ανακάλυψη του θείου

φωτός…
Μακριά από τους ανθρώπους που φθίνουν με τις εποχές…
Φθινόπωρο…
Η βάρκα μας μετέωρη μες στην ασάλευτη ομίχλη
Επιστρέφει στο λιμάνι της δυστυχίας…
Στην απέραντη πολιτεία με τον ουρανό λεκιασμένο
από φωτιά καιλάσπη…
Κουρέλια που σαπίζουν…
Μουσκεμένο στη βροχή ψωμί….
Μέθη… Μέθη… Μέθη…
Και χιλιάδες έρωτες που με σταύρωσαν…
Δε θα σταματήσει πια αυτή η λάμια
να εξουσιάζει εκατομμύριαψυχές και σώματα νεκρών
που θα αντιμετωπίσουνε τη θεία κρίση…
Ο εαυτός μου…
Κοιτάζω πάλι τον εαυτό μου…
Κοιτάζομαι ξανά…
Το δέρμα μου φαγωμένο από το πύο και την πανούκλα…
Τα μαλλιά μου σκουλήκια
και στην καρδιά μου παντού σκουλήκια …
Ξαπλωμένος ανάμεσα σε άγνωστους χωρίς ηλικία, χωρίς
αισθήματα…


Θα μπορούσα να πεθάνω εδώ…
Τι φριχτή ανάμνηση…;;
Σιχαίνομαι την κακομοιριά και ο χειμώνας με τις ανέσεις

του με φοβίζει…
Καμιά φορά βλέπω στον ουρανό απέραντες ακτές…
Πλημμυρίζουν από χαρούμενα έθνη ντυμένα στα λευκά…
Από πάνω μου ένα μεγάλο χρυσό καράβι με τις

πολύχρωμες σημαίες του
Να ανεμίζουν στην πρωινή αύρα…
Επινόησα όλες τις γιορτές…
Έζησα όλους τους θριάμβους… Όλα τα δράματα…
Προσπάθησα να δημιουργήσω καινούργια λουλούδια…
Καινούργια άστρα… Καινούργιασώματα… Καινούργιες

γλώσσες…
Πίστεψα ότι απέκτησα υπερφυσικές δυνάμεις…
Και λοιπόν;;;
Πρέπει να θάψω μια για πάντα τη φαντασία μου και τις
αναμνήσεις μου…
Η μεγάλη δόξα του καλλιτέχνη έχει πάει περίπατο…
Θα ζητήσω συγγνώμη που έζησα μες στο ψέμα και

φύγαμε…
Ούτε ένα αγαπημένο χέρι….
Ούτε ένα..;
Πουθενά βοήθεια…
Πουθενά..;

"The River Merchant's Wife" by Ezra Pound (read by Tom O'Bedlam)

"Sonnet 18" William Shakespeare

Δεκατετράστιχο [126] Κωστὴς Παλαμᾶς

Θεέ μου! Θεέ μου! Μὰ τίποτε δὲν ἔχω
μέσα μου ποὺ μὲ μιὰ καρδιὰ νὰ μοιάζει!
Πότε στραβὸς μὲ πάει τὸ πεῖσμα, τρέχω,
πότε βουβός, μὲ δένει ἕνα μαράζι.
Ἀπὸ βουλή, ἀπὸ γνώμη δὲν κατέχω.
Ψευτοζῶ μὲ τὸ τώρα, δὲ μὲ νοιάζει
γιὰ τὸ χτές. Καὶ γιὰ τὸ αὔριο; Δὲν προσέχω.
Ἡ ἀρνησιὰ μὲ γυμνώνει, μὲ λεκκιάζει
τὸ ψέμα...Εἶμαι σὰν ἕνα θηλυκὸ
ποὺ ὅλο σὲ ἀργὸ καθρέφτισμα ξεχνιέται,
εἶμαι αὐτὸς ποὺ τὸ μαῦρο του ἑαυτὸ
βλέπει ὅλο ἀγνάντια του...Εἶμαι τὸ κακὸ
ποὺ μὲ τὴν ἴδια του ἀσκημιὰ χτυπιέται
στὴ νύχτα ποὺ ὅλο πιὸ πολὺ σκορπιέται...

"Hamlet" William Shakespeare

HAMLET: To be, or not to be- that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die- to sleep-
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die- to sleep.
To sleep- perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub!
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death-
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns- puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.

"Silence" Edgar Allan Poe

  There are some qualities--some incorporate things,
    That have a double life, which thus is made
  A type of that twin entity which springs
    From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.
  There is a twofold _Silence_--sea and shore--
    Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places,
    Newly with grass o'ergrown; some solemn graces,
  Some human memories and tearful lore,
  Render him terrorless: his name's "No More."
  He is the corporate Silence: dread him not!
    No power hath he of evil in himself;
  But should some urgent fate (untimely lot!)
    Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf,
  That haunteth the lone regions where hath trod
  No foot of man), commend thyself to God!

Friedrich Nietzsche

''Of all that is written,i love only what a person has written with his own blood.''

ΕΡΩΤΙΚΑ ΠΟΙΗΜΑΤΑ Pablo Neruda

Γυναικείο σώμα, λόφοι λευκοί, πόδια κατάλευκα, μοιάζεις του κόσμου όπως μου δίνεσαι έτσι. Το αργασμένο κορμί μου άγρια σε σκάβει και σου αναδύει τον υιό και λόγο από της γαίας τα έγκατα. Ήμουνα μόνος κι έρημος, σαν το τούνελ καληώρα. Με βλέπαν τα πουλιά και φεύγανε, και μέσα μου όρμαγε η νύχτα πανίσχυρη και καταλυτική. Για να μείνω εγώ ζωντανός, έφτιαξα εσένανε όπλο, σ' έβαλα βέλος στο τόξο μου, στη σφεντόνα μου πέτρα. Επέστη όμως της πληρωμής ο καιρός, κι εγώ σ' αγαπάω. Σώμα από χνούδι κι από μούσκλια κι από άπληστο γάλα και κραταιό. Ω, τ' αγγεία του στήθους! Ω!, τα μάτια της απουσίας! Ω, του εφηβαίου τα ρόδα! Ω, η συρτή και θλιμμένη φωνή σου! Σώμα της δικιά μου γυναίκας, υπήκοος θα 'μαι πιστός των θέλγητρών σου. Δίψα μου, πόθε μου ατελεύτητε, αβέβαιε δρόμε μου! Σκούρες νεροσυρμές, όπου η δίψα αιώνια ακολουθεί, και ο κάματος ακολουθεί, και ο καημός ο απέραντος.