With the First Raindrop...

"With the first raindrop,
summer was killed.
The words, which were filled with shining stars,
got soaked.

Many were the words which were only destined for you.

Before my eyes existed, you were light.
Before eros, you were eros.
And when the kiss got you, you were woman.

Where to lay our hands, now that time doesn't care for us.
Where to lay our eyes, now that the faraway lines have capsized in the clouds.
We're all alone, surrounded by your dead images".


Lyrics by Odysseas Elytis (tranlsated by E.Vosnaki), music by Manos Hadjidakis from his Magnus Eroticus* LP (1972).


*Magnus Eroticus is a pop God who lives in our imagination from the time we're born, till the time we die; beautiful, pubertal and constantly alive." ~Manos Hadjidakis

Fata Morgana

I'll take communion with sea water,
distilled from your body drop by drop,
in an ancient copper cup from Algiers,
as done by pirates of old before the fight.

Where are you coming from? From Babylon.
Where are you going? To the eye of the cyclone.
Whom do you love? A Gypsy maid.
What is her name? Fata Morgana*.

A leather sail, all smeared with wax,
smelling of cedar-wood, of incense and of varnish,
like the smell of the hold in an aging ship
built in olden times on Euphrates in Phoenicia.

Where are you coming from? From Babylon.
Where are you going? To the eye of the cyclone.
Whom do you love? A Gypsy maid.
What is her name? Fata Morgana.

Fire-hued rust in the mines of Sina,
the capes of Gerakini and Stratoni.
That ship-coating, that old blessed rust ages us,
It feeds us, feeds on us, and then it kill us!

Where are you coming from? From Babylon.
Where are you going? To the eye of the cyclone.
Whom do you love? A Gypsy maid.
What is her name? Fata Morgana.

The poem Fata Morgana by sea-faring Greek poet Nikos Kavvadias is set to music and sung by Mariza Koch.

*A "fata morgana" is a mirage, an optical phenomenon caused by abrupt variances in air temperature. Objects on the horizon, such as islands, cliffs, ships or icebergs, appear elongated and elevated

There is no Ship for You, There is no Road...

The City

You said, "I will go to another land, I will go to another sea.
Another city will be found, better than this.
Every effort of mine is condemned by fate;
and my heart is -- like a corpse -- buried.
How long in this wasteland will my mind remain.
Wherever I turn my eyes, wherever I may look
I see the black ruins of my life here,
where I spent so many years, and ruined and wasted."

New lands you will not find, you will not find other seas.
The city will follow you. You will roam the same
streets. And you will age in the same neighborhoods;
in these same houses you will grow gray.
Always you will arrive in this city. To another land -- do not hope --
there is no ship for you, there is no road.
As you have ruined your life here
in this little corner, you have destroyed it in the whole world.

Constantine P. Cavafy (1910)

translation from the Greek original by G.Barbanis
Clip recital by Dimitris Horn, a prominent Greek actor

For the Shop

He wrapped them up carefully, neatly,
in expensive green silk.
Roses of rubies, lilies of pearl,
violets of amethyst: according to his taste,
his will, his vision of their beauty -- not as he saw them in nature or studied them.

He'll leave them in the safe,
examples of his bold, his skilful work.
Whenever a customer comes into the shop,
he brings out other things to sell -- first class ornaments:
bracelets, chains, necklaces, rings.

Constantine P. Cavafy 1913

Guarding Thermopylae...

Honor to those who in their lives
have defined and guard their Thermopylae.
Never stirring from duty;
just and upright in all their deeds,
yet with pity and compassion too;
generous when they are rich,
and when they are poor, again a little generous,
again helping as much as they can;
always speaking the truth,
yet without hatred for those who lie.

And more honor is due to themwhen they foresee
(and many do foresee)
that Ephialtes will finally appear,
and that the Medes in the end will go through.

Constantine P. Cavafy (1903)