Constantine Cavafy – Poems

Herod of Attica
Ah, this glory of Herod of Attica, what a glory it is.
Alexander of Seleucia, one of our good sophists,
arriving in Athens to speak,
finds the city deserted, because Herod
is in the countryside. And all the young people
followed him there to hear him.
So Alexander the sophist
writes Herod a letter,
and begs him to send the Greeks back.
However the witty Herod answers at once,
“I am also coming along with the Greeks.”—
How many boys in Alexandria now,
in Antioch, or in Beirut
(tomorrow’s orators that Hellenism has trained),
when they gather at the best tables
where sometimes the talk is of refined sophistry,
and sometimes of their splendid love lives,
turn suddenly absentmindedly silent.
They leave their glasses untouched in front of them,
and contemplate Herod’s good fortune—
what other sophist achieved so much?—
whatever he wishes, whatever he does
the Greeks (the Greeks!) follow him,
without judgement or debate,
they don’t even choose anymore, they just follow.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1723961833

Hours of the Stars

Pollstar
To let myself be taken
by the love of the compass
myth of day was stitched onto the sky
by the joyous crucifiers
serpents and beasts shed
their height and
the black bad attire of earth and stone
when Dream wakes up and
the silent fields
open wide to the speech of leaves

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763408

Wheat Ears

White Thoughts
Apollo’s temple at Delphi shivered, fallen
leaves that always reminded me
of the autumnal tree rustle, wishes became
soldiers coming back from the front lines
in coffins laid like spent bullets
gravestones made of marble, abundant
whiteness like my thoughts, palindromic
mind between the sea’s punishment
and death in a chapel where I met
people kneeling for thousands
of years, steel lined against steel
war after another war hunger at noon
and hunger during the night as long as
their coffers were always kept full
there I met their hatred for the first time
deep savage illusion that incised with
red letters in the wall of revenge
words such as: kill, destroy, decapitate
and I was raised in a Christian home
having the luxury of Christian piety

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BKHW4B4S