my sad captains - Thom Gunn

Vladimir Kush

One by one they appear in

the darkness: a few friends, and

a few with historical

names. How late they start to shine!

but before they fade they stand

perfectly embodied, all

the past lapping them like a

cloak of chaos. They were men

who, I thought, lived only to

renew the wasteful force they

spent with each hot convulsion.

They remind me, distant now.

True, they are not at rest yet,

but now they are indeed

apart, winnowed from failures,

they withdraw to an orbit

and turn with disinterested

hard energy, like the stars.

cat island - Thom Gunn

Cats met us at

the landing-place

reclining in the sun

to check us in

with a momentary glance,

concierges

of a grassy island.

(Attila's Throne,

the Devil's Bridge,

and "the best Byzantine

church in the world",

long saints admonitory

on kiln-like inner walls.)

And lunch in a shady court

where cats now

systematically worked

the restaurant, table

by table, gazing into eyes

pleading "I'm hungry

and I'm cute", reaching

front paws up to knees

and always getting

before zeroing in

on the next table, same

routine, same result.

Sensible bourgeois

wild-cats working

with the furred impudence

of those who don't pretend

to be other than whores,

they give you not

the semblance of love

but simply

a look at their beauty

in return for food.

Models, not escorts.

They lack, too,

the prostitute's self-pity,

being beyond shame.

And we lack

what they have.

Mozart - Linea...

Cythère - Paul Verlaine

Un pavillon à claires-voies
Abrite doucement nos joies
Qu'éventent des rosiers amis;

L'odeur des roses, faible, grâce
Au vent léger d'été qui passe,
Se mêle aux parfums qu'elle a mis ;

Comme ses yeux l'avaient promis,
Son courage est grand et sa lèvre
Communique une exquise fièvre ;

Et l'Amour comblant tout, hormis
La Faim, sorbets et confitures
Nous préservent des courbatures.

Perhaps Love - John Denver

considering the snail - Thom Gunn

The snail pushes through a green
night, for the grass is heavy
with water and meets over
the bright path he makes, where rain
has darkened the earth's dark. He
moves in a wood of desire,

pale antlers barely stirring
as he hunts. I cannot tell
what power is at work, drenched there
with purpose, knowing nothing.
What is a snail's fury? All
I think is that if later

I parted the blades above
the tunnel and saw the thin
trail of broken white across
litter, I would never have
imagined the slow passion
to that deliberate progress.

Haris Alexiou-Ximerwnei

touch - Thom Gunn

You are already
asleep. I lower
myself in next to
you, my skin slightly
numb with the restraint
of habits, the patina of
self, the black frost
of outsideness, so that even
unclothed, it is
a resilient chilly
hardness, a superficially
malleable, dead
rubbery texture.

You are a mound
of bedclothes, where the cat
in sleep braces
its paws against your
calf through the blankets,
and kneads each paw in turn.

Meanwhile and slowly
I feel a is it
my own warmth surfacing or
the ferment of your whole
body that in darkness beneath
the cover is stealing
bit by bit to break
down that chill.

You turn and
hold me tightly, do
you know who
I am or am I
your mother or
the nearest human being to
hold on to in a
dreamed pogrom.

What I, now loosened,
sink into is an old
big place, it is
there already, for
you are already
there, and the cat
got there before you,
it is hard to locate.
What is more, the place is
not found but seeps
from our touch in
continuous creation, dark
enclosing cocoon round
ourselves alone, dark
wide realm where we
walk with everyone.

Spring is like a perhaps hand - ee cummings

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere) arranging
a window, into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here) and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there) and

without breaking anything.

Κάπου υπάρχει η αγάπη μου

le pont Mirabeau - Apollinaire

Vladimir Kush

Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
Et nos amours
Faut-il qu'il m'en souvienne
La joie venait toujours après la peine.

Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure

Les mains dans les mains restons face à face
Tandis que sous
Le pont de nos bras passe
Des éternels regards l'onde si lasse

Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure

L'amour s'en va comme cette eau courante
L'amour s'en va
Comme la vie est lente
Et comme l'Espérance est violente

Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure

Passent les jours et passent les semaines
Ni temps passé
Ni les amours reviennent
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine