Archive for C.P. Cavafy

He Asked About the Quality – C.P. Cavafy

Posted in LGBTQ+, Poetry with tags , , , on June 15, 2025 by telescoper 
He left the office where he'd been given
a trivial, poorly paid job
(something like eight pounds a month, including bonuses)-
left at the end of the dreary work
that kept him bent all afternoon,
came out at seven and walked off slowly,
idling his way down the street. Good-looking,
and interesting: showing as he did that he'd reached
his full sensual capacity.
He'd turned twenty-nine the month before.

He idled his way down the main street
and the poor side-streets that led to his home.

Passing in front of a small shop that sold
cheap and flimsy merchandise for workers,
he saw a face inside, a figure
that compelled him to go in, and he pretended
he wanted to look at some coloured handkerchiefs.

He asked about the quality of the handkerchiefs
and how much they cost, his voice choking,
almost silenced by desire.
And the answers came back in the same mood,
distracted, the voice hushed,
offering hidden consent.

They kept on talking about the merchandise-
but the only purpose: that their hands might touch
over the handkerchiefs, that their faces, their lips,
might move close together as though by chance-
a moment's meeting of limb against limb.

Quickly, secretly, so the shop owner sitting at the back
wouldn't realize what was going on.

by C.P. Cavafy (1863-1933; from Collected Poems, translated by Edmund Heeley and Philip Sherrard)

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Awaiting The Barbarians

Posted in Finance, Poetry, Politics with tags , , , , , on July 13, 2015 by telescoper

— Why are we come together in the market place?
 
            Barbarians are expected here to-day.
 
— Why in the Senate-house this inactivity —
why sit the Senators and do not legislate?
 
            Because barbarians are to come to-day
            What laws should they make now — the Senators?
            Presently the barbarians will make laws.
 
— Why has our Emperor risen close upon the sun —
why is he waiting there, by the main city-gates,
seated upon the throne, — august, wearing the crown?
 
            Because barbarians are to come to-day
            And so the Emperor in person waits
            to greet their leader. He has even prepared
            a title-deed, on skin of Pergamus,
            in favour of this leader. It confers
            high rank on the barbarian, many names.
 
— Why do our consuls and the praetors go about
in scarlet togas fretted with embroidery;
why are they wearing bracelets rife with amethysts,
and rings magnificent with glowing emeralds;
why are they holding those invaluable staffs
inlaid so cunningly with silver and with gold?
 
            Because barbarians are to come to-day;
            and the barbarians marvel at such things.
 
— Why come not, as they use, our able orators
to hold forth in their rhetoric, to have their say?
 
            Because barbarians are to come to-day;
            and the barbarians have no taste for words.
 
— Why this confusion all at once, and nervousness:
(how serious of a sudden the faces have become):
why are the streets and meeting-places emptying,
and all the people lost in thought as they turn home?
 
            Because the daylight fails, and the night comes,
            but the barbarians come not. And there be
            who from the frontier have arrived and said
            there are no barbarians any longer.

And now what shall become of us without barbarians?
These people were in sooth some sort of settlement.

by C.P. Cavafy (1863-1933); posted on the occasion of the all-night negotiations between the EU and Greece over a bailout deal.

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