ΚΑΦΕΣ

 

ΚΑΦΕΣ

Απογευματινός καφές με τα δώρα του Μαιτρ από το Σαν Φραντσίσκο!

ΛΩΡΕΝΣ ΦΕΡΛΙΝΓΚΕΤΤΙ!

LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI

POET AS FISHERMAN

As I grow older I percieve
Life has its tail in its mouth
and other poets other painters
are no longer any kind of competition
Its the sky that's the challenge
the sky that still needs deciphering
even as astronomers strain to hear it
with their huge electric ears
the sky that whispers to us constantly
the final secrets of the universe
the sky that breathes in and out
as if it were the inside of a mouth
of the cosmos
the sky that is the land's edge also
and the sea's edge also
the sky with its many voices and no god
the sky that engulfs a sea of sound
and echoes it back to us
as in a wave against a seawall
Whole poems whole dictionaries
rolled up in a thunderclap
And every sunset an action painting
and every cloud a book of shadows
through which wildly fly
the vowels of birds about to cry
And the sky is clear to the fisherman
even if overcast
He sees it for what it is :
a mirror of the sea
about to fall on him
in his wood boat on the dark horizon
We have to think of him as the poet
forever face to face with old reality

ΛΩΡΕΝΣ ΦΕΡΛΙΝΓΚΕΤΤΙ!

LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI

O FRAGILE POEMS

O fragile poems
flowers of night-love
quivering of guitars
by the Guadalquivir
echoed voices
on sunlit terraces
white statues on bridgeheads
and ‘The white arms of roads’
leap of wild horses
pawing the earth
trains in the night
their haunted whistles hid
in book of time
autumn evenings on Third Avenue
the ochre light falling
dressmakers’ dummies undressed
on tenement fire escapes
newborn babies thrust
into baths of tears
laughter like crystal shattering
champagne glasses thrown
against fireplaces
dawn and exhausted lovers
still to be sated-
all, all poems in the human dream
still to be liberated!

ΛΩΡΕΝΣ ΦΕΡΛΙΝΓΚΕΤΤΙ!

LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI

THE WORLD IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE TO BE BORN INTO

The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don't mind happiness
not always being
so very much fun
if you don't mind a touch of hell
now and then
just when everything is fine
because even in heaven
they don't sing
all the time

The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don't mind some people dying
all the time
or maybe only starving
some of the time
which isn't half bad
if it isn't you

Oh the world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don't much mind
a few dead minds
in the higher places
or a bomb or two
now and then
in your upturned faces
or such other improprieties
as our Name Brand society
is prey to
with its men of distinction
and its men of extinction
and its priests
and other patrolmen

and its various segregations
and congressional investigations
and other constipations
that our fool flesh
is heir to

Yes the world is the best place of all
for a lot of such things as
making the fun scene
and making the love scene
and making the sad scene
and singing low songs and having inspirations
and walking around
looking at everything
and smelling flowers
and goosing statues
and even thinking
and kissing people and
making babies and wearing pants
and waving hats and
dancing
and going swimming in rivers
on picnics
in the middle of the summer
and just generally
'living it up'
Yes
but then right in the middle of it
comes the smiling

mortician