Rapunzel

Ruslana Korshunova / © Elina Kechicheva

Time for tales
Wenn die Zauberin hinein wollte, so stellte sie sich unten hin und rief:
"Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Laß mir dein Haar herunter!"
Rapunzel hatte lange, prächtige Haare, fein wie gesponnen Gold. Wenn sie nun die Stimme der Zauberin vernahm, so band sie ihre Zöpfe los, wickelte sie oben um einen Fensterhaken, und dann fielen die Haare zwanzig Ellen tief herunter, und die Zauberin stieg daran hinauf.

[When the witch wanted to come in, she stood down below and called out:
"Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair for me."
Rapunzel had beautiful long hair, as fine as spun gold. When she heard the witch's voice, she undid her braids and fastened them to the window latch. They fell to the ground twenty ells down, and the witch climbed up on them.]

Jakob Ludwig Karl Grimm and Wilhelm Karl Grimm [Kinder- und Hausmärchen, 1812-1857]

το νεράκι και το χώμα σου

Oksana Badio, Eau Forte Collection

Με τα σύνεργα θα έρθω της ανασκαφής
το κορμάκι μου να σκάψω για να φυτευτείς
και θ' αδειάσω σαν ποτήρι μες το στόμα σου
εγώ είμαι το νεράκι και το χώμα σου
Στίχοι: Γιάννης Τσατσόπουλος, Μουσική: Σωκράτης Μάλαμας [Μαύρο φως, 1992]

Flamma

Flames / © I.A. Daglis

flamma flamma

ex sole et stellis surrepta

audacium lux

amoris ardor

ut animam liberes

ut tenebras vincas

te consecramus

[flame flame

stolen from sun and stars

light of the reckless

ardor of love

to free the soul

to vanquish darkness

we consecrate you]

Nicholas Lens [Flamma Flamma, in The Accacha Chronicles, 1994]

Άστρα

Σφαιρικό σμήνος Ωμέγα Κενταύρου / European Southern Observatory

Τόσα άστρα
    κι εγώ να λιμοκτονώ.
Τάσος Λειβαδίτης [Εγχειρίδιο ευθανασίας, 1979]

Με ευχαριστίες στη Στέλλα

Power elite: “more equal” than the others

Chateau Beynac - power of the old days / © Luc Viatour

Considerations of conflict resolution, decision making, economics, and space converge in requiring large societies to be centralized. But centralization of power inevitably opens the door – for those who hold the power, are privy to information, make the decisions, and redistribute the goods – to exploit the resulting opportunities to reward themselves and their relatives… As early societies developed, those acquiring centralized power gradually established themselves as an elite, perhaps originating as one of the several formerly equal-ranked village clans that became “more equal” than the others.

Jared Diamond [Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, 1997]

Hellenic Parliament, Athens - contemporary power / © Gerard McGovern

γαϊδουράγκαθα

γαϊδουράγκαθα στο Βέρμιο, αύγουστος 2006 / © I.A. Daglis 

…ο Λίο Άουφμαν ήταν άνθρωπος που ζούσε χωρίς άγχος, απολαμβάνοντας πώς χτυπούσαν το ένα με τ’ άλλο τα γαϊδουράγκαθα στο καυτό χορτάρι όταν φυσούσε λίβας …

Ρέι Μπράντμπερυ [Κρασί από πικραλίδα, 1957]

the howling chaos of the heart

The hidden fires of the Flame Nebula / © European Southern Observatory

My love is too much
it embarrasses you
blood, poems, babies,
red needs that telephone
from foreign countries,
black needs that spatter
the pages
of your white papery heart.

You would rather have a girl
with simpler needs:
lunch, sex, undemanding
loving,
dinner, wine, bed,
the occasional blow-job
and needs that are never
red as gaping wounds
but cool and blue
as television screens
in tract houses.

Oh my love,
those simple girls
with simple needs
read my books too.

They tell me they feel
the same as I do.

They tell me I transcribe
the language of their hearts.
They tell me I translate
their mute, unspoken pain
into the white light
of language.

Oh love,
no love
is ever wholly undemanding.
It can pretend coolness
until the pain comes,
until the first baby comes,
howling her own infant need
into a universe
that never summoned her.

The love you seek
cannot be found
except in the white pages
of recipe books.

It is cooking you seek,
not love,
cooking with sex coming after,
cool sex
that speaks to the penis alone,
and not the howling chaos
of the heart.

Erica Jong [My Love is Too Much from Ordinary Miracles, 1983]

Οι γέροι

Old Man, Children, Birds. Paris 1982 / © I.A. Daglis

Οι Γέροι
Μοιάζουν τόσο πολύ με τα παιδιά
που σου ‘ρχεται να τους τραγουδήσεις
ύστερα θυμάσαι πως  δεν έχουν όνειρα
μήτε το θράσος της υγείας
κι απομένεις βουβός
θέλοντας να προσκυνήσεις τ’ αξούριστα πρόσωπα
όπως τον ξεχασμένο τάφο των γονέων σου
που σου τον θύμισε τ’ όνειρο χθες βράδυ …

Στυλιανός Χαρκιανάκης [Η οικειότητα των αινιγμάτων, 1983]

16 Dec 1928: Birthday of Philip K. Dick

"Everything is true", he said. "Everything anybody has ever thought".

Philip K. Dick 

[Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, 1968; aka Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott, 1982]

Ridley Scott's Blade Runner opening (1982)

People on Mars, beggars in the streets

Beggar in Rome / I.A. Daglis

Beggars slumped in the doorways. There were people on Mars and there were beggars in the streets of the nation’s capital, and all the lawyers walked by them every day, their freedom-and-justice talk no more than a cover for greed. “We’re gonna do it differently on Mars”, Frank said...

Kim Stanley Robinson [Red Mars, 1993]

Χιόνι

Snow tree / © Alex Daglis 

Ξανάρθε λοιπόν

το χιόνι που βγήκαμε

να δούμε μαζί.

Ματσούο Μπασό [1644–1694, Ιάπωνας ποιητής]

the rapturous enthusiasm of a child

Alex and a ladybug, 1992 / © I.A. Daglis  

Herodotus travels in order to satisfy a child’s question: Where do the ships on the horizon come from? And is what we see with our own eyes not the edge of the world? No. So there are still other worlds? What kind? When the child grows up, he will want to get to know them. But it would be better if he didn’t grow up completely, if he stayed always in some small measure a child. Only children pose important questions and truly want to discover things. Herodotus learns about his world with the rapturous enthusiasm of a child.

Ryszard Kapuściński [Travels with Herodotus, 2004]

Light

Fiat Lux / © I.A. Daglis

 

Hold me in the dark;
you will see light.

Erica Jong [How to save your own life, 1977]

Τύπος και ουσία

Πινακίδα απαγόρευσης σε πλατεία χωριού της Ευρυτανίας

το σάββατον δια τον άνθρωπον εγένετο, ουχ ο άνθρωπος δια το σάββατον.

Μάρκ. 2, 27

Starving. Liberally.

Orphan in Drapetsona, Athens, during the German occupation,Winter 1942.

© Voula Papaioannou

Earth is a perfectly liberal world. But half of it is starving, and always has been, and always will be. Very liberally.

Arkady in Red Mars of Kim Stanley Robinson [1993]