In Despair (audio only)
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translated from the modern Greek by John Cavafy
Without reflection, without mercy, without shame,
they built strong walls and high, and compassed me about.
And here I sit now and consider and despair.
It wears away my heart and brain, this evil fate:
I had outside so many things to terminate.
1927
In part to verify a date, and in part just to pass the time, last night I picked up a volume of Ptolemaic inscriptions and began reading. Those endless poems of praise and flattery all sound the same.
2008
He can’t be more than twenty-two.
And yet I’m certain it was at least that many years ago
that I enjoyed the very same body.
This isn’t some erotic fantasy.
I’ve only just come into the casino
and there hasn’t been time enough to drink.
I tell you, that’s the very same body I once enjoyed.
2008