Yesterday it was a Paul Pines book and it opened up to page 34 and this poem:
Reading
Cavafy
What I
like most about Cavafy
is that
he can't stop moralizing.
Growing
old he sees he also grows
warmer
to the barbarian in himself,
the
Persian among Greeks,
the
would-be voluptuary.
He
spends days in cafes
by the
sea,
drinking
ouzo and wondering
if the
whole world is destined to
become
as small and seedy
as
Alexandria.
The
bodies of young men excite him.
He
watches them from
his
Garden of Missed Opportunities
until it
resembles Gesthsemane
where he
turns part Christian,
almost
anti-Hellene
while the
Greek in him
continues
to weep
at the
tomb of Patroklos,
insisting
there is a grace in us
more
magnificent than the god
it
reflects.
~~ Paul
Pines
(From: Last
Call at the Tin Palace: Poems by Paul Pines, Marsh Hawk Press, 2009)*
___________________
*A book of poems once gifted to me by its author. (Thanks again, Paul).
Poems are for sharing.
___________________
*A book of poems once gifted to me by its author. (Thanks again, Paul).
Poems are for sharing.
