life ticking:

Thursday 30 August 2007

now in English

e e cummings - i go to this window

i go to this window

just as day dissolves
when it is twilight(and
looking up in fear

i see the new moon
thinner than a hair)

making me feel
how myself has been coarse and dull
compared with you, silently who are
and cling
to my mind always

But now she sharpens and becomes crisper
until i smile with knowing
--and all about
herself
the sprouting largest final air

plunges
inward with hurled
downward thousands of enormous dreams

Μιχάλης Γκανάς - ΑΜΝΗΣΙΑ

Η κάθε μέρα σαν τη γομολάστιχα
σβήνει την προηγούμενη και πάει.
Άλλοτε σβήνει την επόμενη,
καμιά φορά ολόκληρη βδομάδα.

Βροχές θυμάμαι και πουλιά
και ιστορίες που δεν έζησα ποτέ μου.

Τις νύχτες γράφεται το μέλλον μου,
τα φοβερά καθέκαστα της επομένης,
και πρέπει να ξυπνάω στις εφτά,
με την ψυχή στα δόντια να γυρίζω,
για να προλάβω τις παραγγελίες.

Χιόνια θυμάμαι και βουνά
και εξορίες που δεν έζησα ποτέ μου.

Λησμόνησα τους ίδιους τους γονείς μου,
πώς ήτανε και ποιοι και πόσοι.
Κοιτάζω γράμματα, φωτογραφίες,
δεν ξεχωρίζω ζωντανούς και πεθαμένους.
Γριές και γέροι και παιδιά,
μεσήλικες θλιμμένοι.

Μάτια θυμάμαι και φωνές,
πρόσωπα που δε γνώρισα ποτέ μου.

Δημουλά πάντα...

Άφησα να μην ξέρω - Κική Δημουλά


Aπό τον κόσμο των γρίφων
φεύγω ήσυχη.
Δεν έχω βλάψει στη ζωή μου αίνιγμα:
δεν έλυσα κανένα.
Oύτε κι αυτά που θέλαν να πεθάνουν
πλάι στα παιδικά μου χρόνια:
έχω ένα βαρελάκι που 'χει δυο λογιών κρασάκι.
Tο κράτησα ώς τώρα
αχάλαστο ανεξήγητο,
γιατί ώς τώρα
δυο λογιών κρασάκι
έχουν λυμένα κι άλυτα που μου τυχαίνουν.
Συμβίωσα σκληρά
μ' έναν ψηλό καλόγερο που κόκαλα δεν έχει
και δεν τον ρώτησα ποτέ
ποιας φωτιάς γιος είναι,
σε ποιο θεό ανεβαίνει και μου φεύγει.

Δεν του λιγόστεψα του κόσμου
τα προσωπιδοφόρα πλάσματά του,
του ανάθρεψα του κόσμου το μυστήριο
με θυσία και με στέρηση.
Mε το αίμα που μου δόθηκε
για να τον εξηγήσω.
Ό,τι ήρθε με δεμένα μάτια
και σκεπασμένη πρόθεση
έτσι το δέχτηκα
κι έτσι τ' αποχωρίστηκα:
με δεμένα μάτια και σκεπασμένη πρόθεση.
Aίνιγμα δανείστηκα,
αίνιγμα επέστρεψα.
Άφησα να μην ξέρω
πώς λύνεται ένα χθες,
ένα εξαρτάται,
το αίνιγμα των ασυμπτώτων.
Άφησα να μην ξέρω τι αγγίζω,
ένα πρόσωπο ή ένα βιάζομαι.

Oύτε κι εσένα σε παρέσυρα στο φως
να σε διακρίνω.
Στάθηκα Πηνελόπη
στη σκοτεινή ολιγωρία σου.
Kι αν ρώτησα καμιά φορά πώς λύνεσαι,
πηγή αν είσαι ή κρήνη,
θα 'ταν κάποια καλοκαιριάτικη ημέρα
που, Πηνελόπες και όχι,
μας κυριεύει αυτός ο δαίμων του νερού
για να δοξάζεται το αίνιγμα
πώς μένουμε αξεδίψαστοι.
Aπό τον κόσμο των γρίφων
φεύγω ήσυχη.
Aναμάρτητη:
αξεδίψαστη.
Στο αίνιγμα του θανάτου
πάω ψυχωμένη.

Tuesday 28 August 2007

Dimoula - only in Greek

Αυτοσυντήρηση

Θα πρέπει να ήταν άνοιξη
γιατί η μνήμη αυτή
υπερπηδώντας παπαρούνες έρχεται.
Εκτός εάν η νοσταλγία
από πολύ βιασύνη,
παραγνώρισ' ενθυμούμενο.
Μοιάζουνε τόσο μεταξύ τους όλα
όταν τα πάρει ο χαμός.
Αλλά μπορεί να'ναι ξένο αυτό το φόντο,
να'ναι παπαρούνες δανεισμένες
από μιάν άλλην ιστορία,
δική μου ή ξένη.
Τα κάνει κάτι τέτοια η αναπόληση.
Από φιλοκαλία κι έπαρση.

Όμως θα πρέπει να 'ταν άνοιξη
γιατί και μέλισσες βλέπω
να πετούν γύρω απ' αυτή τη μνήμη,
με περιπάθεια και πίστη
να συνωστίζονται στον κάλυκά της.
Εκτός αν είναι ο οργασμός
νόμος του παρελθόντος,
μηχανισμός του ανεπανάληπτου.
Αν μένει πάντα κάποια γύρις
στα τελειωμένα πράγματα
για την επικονίαση
της εμπειρίας, της λύπης
και της ποίησης.

waking up early

i miss a friend i haven't seen / communicated with for more than a year.
i hope he does well with his woman in another European country, but God i miss just talking to him.

So long, Billy.
Be well and thriving.

the only way i see you these days it seems is my dreamland. i could at last talk to you, hug you and tell you how indispensable and most valuable you have been. And how my life is a bit emptier without your presence and warm smile. As air the band would comment "you make it easy". or at least you made it easy.


http://www.astralwerks.com/air/discography.html
there you can hear the song - it is in Moon Safari, the album and it is in .ram format.
worth the try.

Monday 27 August 2007

b*day

well, not mine - my sister's.
but this celebration served its purpose well, in that it reminded me of all those last 10 years.

Happy B*day, little sis.
hopefully YOUR next ten years will be shinier and better than mine.

in shambles


all i can communicate right now, even in this bleak and frozen (emotionally) Monday morning before heading off to my new work, is just one word:
SHAME.

Shame to all those bastards burning down my Greece.

i feel fallen from Heaven, flabbergasted, mute, unable to utter anything more.
(this is the reason i wrote nothing yesterday - i was in front of the box, looming oven the live satellite images of catastrophy- nothing nothing nothing).

E.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20070827/tts-uk-greece-fires-2c15123_1.html

Saturday 25 August 2007

quoting again

"Whatever dies, was not mix'd equally; If our two loves be one, or thou and I Love so alike that none can slacken, none can die...."
-John Donne

Friday 24 August 2007

by the way, today i am a little sick...

so i am home relaxing and feeling every inch of my stomach...

sites

there are always some interesting sites to keep an eye on, like:

http://en.thinkexist.com

http://answers.yahoo.com/


and of course this blog - for those interested to keep an eye on ME...

Tuesday 21 August 2007

Seferis

He had said it decades ago - "Weird - the best of days come from the opposite direction".

And i am happy. Today i am happy. i feel that i had so much more than asked for.
This is bliss. This is personal achievement.

Well, nothing REAL happened. Sometimes all it takes to feel content is human intentions.
And the intentions of all people involved today - from my HR head to a long lost friend - showed some aspects of the frail human psyche that left me speechless. Just because they all meant well. And their words matched their eyes - purity.

THANK YOU. For all the good intentions and the chances given from your heart's depths.
THANK YOU.

Monday 20 August 2007

new job...

this was it - first day @new job. not disaster, just apathy.
i feel i can't belong, not there, not like this - the post description, the environment, the level of employees... i don't belong, i feel like running away from it all.

But will i run away?
or is it another chickening instance?

to be seen.

Saturday 18 August 2007

as my friend, Fabio, told me:

no soy muy distinta de la persona que era, pero ahora soy mejor

which in English would translate as:
i am no longer the person i was, but i am better now


EXACTLY THIS.

The time comes.

This is it. It is the red anniversary tonight.
Some minutes have this power; they change lives.
August 19th, some years back - how many years? 6.

This is it. The time comes and you reverse facts, you twist reality, you change your point of view. I did, on and on, i can't do it any more. It has happened. August 19th, 2001. Six wasted years trying to revoke the loss, to stop the bleeding, to glue the heart back. It, what happened, was the last drop of a very negatively-charged glass i was filling. Hatred, fury, depression, anger, losses - they are all the same poison. I can't rebuild my Babylon, i can't just pick up a wand and eradicate the moments that hurt me and tore me apart.

This is it. The time comes, tonight, at 1.30am or so, to sit back, listen to music, i have been building a compilation these last days (totally subconsciously), drink some water - wish i could have some icy white wine, but cannot due to the antibiotics i am taking for that infection last week. I will unwind - not the past, this has already existed. I will unwind this present time, find more time for me, recover better, get out of whatever I can with the fewer losses, try to wake up to now, August 18th 2007. I have grown old, i am wearing my heart the other way, and GOD i will start behaving as I did before that August. The physical pain, the emotional vacuum, the Angst. They will all be gone in a moment's time.

Now is the time. The time to start dreaming again. Even in my 35.

Friday 17 August 2007

scattered as is

i saw this Spanish sentence today (yes, i am back to reading Italian and sometimes Spanish):

De repente, ella se volvió loca.

Ξαφνικά, αυτή τρελλάθηκε - in Greek.

I am scattered. Torn into strange bits and pieces. Unable to communicate my desires, my fears, my dreams.

WHY?

it is not that rhetorical this Q...

Thursday 16 August 2007

inability to communicate

Last night i meant to blog some thoughts, but the only recurrent thought was that of my future.
Some things always happen beyond my control, while those contollable matters are probably the first i get rid of.
Why do i tire so easily? Why don't i just settle down? Why is it not wise to carry the mind and heart of a 15-year-old when you are old, too old even to tell your age?

Some questions have a common answer; what i am missing. Affection.
And it has nothing to do with the others. It is all about me, loving me more.

So, more to come tonight.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig

Tuesday 14 August 2007

a quote for this strange day

There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.
George Eliot


i feel sad. i need my friends and i need solitude.


Monday 13 August 2007

Monday Morning

I woke up early after a restless night of tossing and turning to a rainy, gloomy, and foggy New England morning. The weather report promises a brighter and sunnier afternoon.
I headed downstairs to my study and restructed my syllabus for the fall. Which made me feel kind of bored. I haven't done anything creative for such a long time that I feel very stagnant and depressed.

So I think instead of staying in all day and working I am going to go into Boston this morning after all. I haven't been into town for a long time I think that it might be nice to spend the morning walking around and perhaps gather my thoughts. Maybe I will get inspired.

K

early Monday morning

I was woken up by the voices of two teenagers who were either drunk at 05.30 and just got home, or who woke too early to leave.
I don't care - I needed sleep and all I got was 4 hours of undisturbed bliss.

Who am I to judge? But I do have the right to sleep a sound sleep. My heart needs the rest I can have.
They didn't allow me to sleep till this time I was supposed to wake up.

Now off I am to work after a 3-day leave due to sickness.
And of course i don't feel like working, after all it is Aug13!

Kali mera, kali mera - may we all have a good, decent week.

Sunday 12 August 2007

of my best friend

She is Katerina and there is absolutely no one i could replace her with. She is my best friend but there is the mockery of distance and the apathy of my ridiculous character that keeps me more away than needed from her.

She is Katerina and she has been with me no matter the distance that separates us more than 10 years, while we were undergrads at college. Perhaps she is the fondest memory of the place, i still recall the moment i arrogantly asked her to give me something of her own so that i remembered her everytime i saw it. She gave me a Cross silver pen, the thin one. I write with it all these years. Then 2 years ago we were talking of pens over the phone and we got the same Parket Sonnet roller ball. This is my fav, and every day i write in it i think of her writing too.

She is Katerina and lives in Boston. A hell of a way. But i still see her in a very early morning visit from the airport to her place, after a sudden trip i had she bringing coffee in her sleepy smile. And i remember her house, sitting there for hours at the balcony, seeing the sun go down, talking talking talking and enjoying her famous latte. And listening to Ramazotti a whole summer. And then after a car accident (well i was a pedestrian and got hit by a motorbike) she was the only one to have come to the hospital to bring me clothes to change. And some many more.

She is Katerina. And she is my best ever friend.

Saturday 11 August 2007

Saturday @home

Red is the new black. From now on my typing shall be in red, it reminds me of my heart, of others' hearts, of passion, of loss, of blindness (when suddenly all goes red, and you forget all other colours).

I have been rereading Borges ( yes, he was blind too - but only physically) this morning, and then i just sat back and watched my last DVD fixation ("House MD").
From the Penguin Classics Borges' 'Book of Sand' i am reciting the following:

"I know that you miss something" (103)

"To be in the fruitless night / he who counts the syllables" (105)

"And underneath the myths and the masks, / her soul, always alone." (107)

and a whole poem first in his language, then in the universal English:

Es el amor, Tendre que ocultarme o que huir. (...)
Estar contigo o no esar contigo es le medida de mi tiempo. (...)
Es, ya lo se, el amor: la ansieded y el alivio de oir tu voz.
la espera y la memoria, el horror de vivir en lo sucesivo,
Es el amor con sus mitologias, con sus pequenas magias
inutiles.
Hay una esquina por la que no me atrevo a pasar.
Ya los ejercitos me cercan, las hordas.
(Esta habitacion es irreal; ella no la ha visto.) (112)

It is love. I wil have to hide or flee. (...)
Being with you or without you is how i measure my time. (...)
It is love, I know it; the anxiety and relief at hearing your voice,
the hope and the memory, the horror at living in succession.
It is love with its own mythology, its mirror and pointless magic.
There is a street corner I do not dare to pass.
Now the armies surround me, the rabble.
(This room is unreal. She has not seen it.) (113)

from the DVD session there is nothing to add here. Borges encapsulates my day's worth.

Friday 10 August 2007

the Becket fixation


I believe him, I know it's my only chance to -- my only chance, I believe all I'm told, I've disbelieved only too much in my long life, now I swallow everything, greedily. What I need now is stories, it took me a long time to know that, and I'm not sure of it.
--Molloy, Part I

Saying is inventing. Wrong, very rightly wrong. You invent nothing, you think you are inventing, you think you are escaping, and all you do is stammer out your lesson, the remnants of a pensum one day got by heart and long forgotten, life without tears, as it is wept.
--Molloy, Part I

Decidedly it will never have been given to me to finish anything, except perhaps breathing. One must not be greedy.
--Malone Dies

And all these questions I ask myself. It is not in a spirit of curiosity. I cannot be silent. About myself I need know nothing. Here all is clear. No, all is not clear. But the discourse must go on. So one invents obscurities. Rhetoric.
--The Unnamable

We are all born mad. Some remain so.
--Waiting for Godot




Dimoula for ever

Κική Δημουλά, χλόη θερμοκηπίου

ΑΕΡΟΓΕΦΥΡΕΣ

Χάθηκες

πού στριφογυρνάς;

Πέρνα καμιά φορά από τον ύπνο μου

συνήθως είμαι εκεί

εκτός αν κλαίει το φεγγάρι

οπότε βγαίνω στο μπαλκόνι

το διότι να ρωτήσω τι συμβαίνει.

Πέρνα καμιά φορά.

Μπες από το πλάι στάσου

κάτω από το γεφυράκι της παλάμης μου

απ’ όπου ήσυχα κυλάω.

Εκτός αν έχει ολότελα μαυρίσει το νερό

αν ψόφησαν κι οι πέτρες

αν έχει μολυνθεί και ο βυθός

οπότε θα με βρεις

στου σεντονιού τις όχθες.

Μη φοβάσαι.

Πάρε μαζί σου αν θες για σιγουριά

και την απαίτηση να μη σ’ αγγίξω διόλου

ανανέωσε και τη ληγμένη άδεια

να σε κοιτώ

και σου υπόσχομαι

εγκαίρως να ξυπνήσω

ώστε να μη σε πάρει είδηση

ο ύπνος σου ότι λείπεις.


of August


it is a cruel month - no holidays but for just one weekend, a lot of work and no dreams.
the last is killing me, this loss of hoping, of believing. Am I too old already? I don't know, I don't need to find out, I don't care.

It is mid August, everyone is out of Athens and i am trying to recover.
Splendid. All of a sudden, my great immune system just decided to shut down.

As my heart. Literally almost, and metaphorically mostly.
There is just this hope, the tomorrow is still safe hidden. Surprises may be en route.

poetry of the month


Even as I hold you

I think of you as someone gone

Far, far away. Your eyes the colour

of pennies in a bowl of dark honey

bringing sweet light to someone else

your black hair slipping through my fingers

is the flash of your head going

around a corner

your smile, breaking before me,

the flippant last turn

of a revolving door,

emptying you out, changed,

away from me.

Even as I hold you

I am letting go.

Alice Walker, “Even as I Hold You”

TSE The Waste Land

S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse

A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,

Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.

Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo

Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,

Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherised upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question. . .

Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"

Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window -panes

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,

And seeing that it was a soft October night,

Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;

There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair --

[They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"]

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin --

[They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"]

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all: --

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all --

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all --

Arms that are braceleted and white and bare

[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]

Is it perfume from a dress

That makes me so digress?

Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

And should I then presume?

And how should I begin?

...

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

...

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

Smoothed by long fingers,

Asleep. tired ... or it malingers,

Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,

I am no prophet -- and here's no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

Would it have been worthwhile,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it toward some overwhelming question,

To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all" --

If one, settling a pillow by her head,

Should say, "That is not what I meant at all.

That is not it, at all."

And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worthwhile,

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along

the floor --

And this, and so much more? –

It is impossible to say just what I mean!

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:

Would it have been worthwhile

If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,

And turning toward the window, should say:

"That is not it at all,

That is not what I meant, at all."

...

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

Am an attendant lord, one that will do

To swell a progress, start a scene or two

Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,

Deferential, glad to be of use,

Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous --

Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old ... I grow old ...

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

T.S. Eliot

Winterson - Lighthouse Keeping

I was cold and tired and my neck ached. I wanted to sleep and sleep and never wake up. I had lost the few things I knew, and what was here belonged to somebody else. Perhaps that would have been all right if what was inside me was my own, but there was no place to anchor.

There were two Atlantics; one outside the lighthouse, and one inside me.

The one inside me had no string of guiding lights.


Random lines


Edna St Vincent Millay
From The Harp-Weaver


I shall go back again to the bleak shore
And build a little shanty on the sand
In such a way that the extremest band
Of brittle seaweed will escape my door
But by a yard or two, and nevermore
Shall I return to take you by the hand;
I shall be gone to what I understand
And happier than I ever was before.
The love that stood a moment in your eyes,
The words that lay a moment on your tongue,
Are one with all that in a moment dies,
A little under-said and over-sung;
But I shall find the sullen rocks and skies
Unchanged from what they were when I was young.