Proportions are what makes the old Greek temples classic in their beauty. They are like huge blocks, from which the air has been literally hewn out between the columns.
quote by Arne Jacobsen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In a Greek Amphitheatre: George Seferis, poet
Noon here in hot summer in this quarter-sphere of stepped stone;
the smell of herbs rolling down from the mountainside,
the light so strong that it seems to have bleached away all thought;
time is taking a siesta.
come sit with me here in this almost deserted amphitheatre
which has stood for more than two thousand years,
only the bees are quietly moving,
searching the flowers which grow between these huge blocks of stone
which someone quarried, someone brought here,
someone acted out the world upon, some many sat
and were moved to fear and tears;
someone ate olives, spat the pits between the blocks of stone;
now an olive tree bears witness,
its bleached roots like an arthritic climber,
splitting the stone blocks with the insistence of history.
‘Memory, wherever you touch it,
hurts’…
merciful gods might have removed these stones
with two thousand years of rain, of wind, of searing sun,
so that the insistence of history might not be
so painful to a Greek.
The only other figure in this huge amphitheatre -
you see him down there? In the white hat
and dark suit of summer cloth? He’s a poet;
but is his mind too, sitting in the audience? Or is he
on the stage? Is he
living the play; the hero with a tragic flaw,
the chorus commenting, the tragedy unfolding?
In Greek, the same word means martyr
and means witness.
He was born a Greek in a Greek colony;
at 22, the Turks flung them out;
he sailed in wine-dark seas of wars and occupations;
and when the sailor sailed into the port to take his place in his immortal court,
found Greece, not celebrating peace, but Greek fighting Greek;
the cruellest of wars.
It was not Odysseus but Greece itself
that wandering, had not yet come home;
the harbours boatless; silent the shepherd's flute;
the olive groves untended; hives deserted;
grapes that never tasted wine; figs that burst uneaten;
Olympia's grass, all silent and untrodden;
temples empty, marble columns
their cool beauty empty-armed without their worshippers.
Here at noon, the summer heat pressing and intense,
the air still, a bee passing across our laps
as we sit here on the higher tier;
a dark-suited poet, witness, martyr,
like an olive tree between hard stone,
suffers the playing out, the painful beauty
like a dark thought at noon,
the insistence of history.
‘Memory, wherever
you touch it, hurts.’
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Do Lack Nothing
Asian classic,
African classic,
American classic,
Canadian classic,
European classic,
Austratian classic,
Like life at the 'four blocks of hell' to share my mind with you.
Vancouver,
The State of Glass;
Of a three-hundred-year-old tree to share my mind with you.
By faith, Abel offered more excellent sacrifice than Cain;
But i will renew my covenant with you my love.
Vancouver! !
Don't throw stones if you are living in a glass house;
Like the voice of the malak gadol,
Walk honestly to all and do lack nothing.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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I support mosques, obviously. We need churches, temples, mosques. Whatever people use to speak with their god or to receive spiritual inspiration is good for the country. But the symbolism of it at ground zero, within two blocks or three blocks, I believe is wrong.
quote by Peter King
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Beauty Of A Poem
The beauty of a poem
The beauty of music
The beauty of light
The beauty of life
The beauty which makes us want to live life more
The beauty which pains us inside
The beauty in longing.
The beauty we come upon by surprise
The beauty of the day and the beauty of the night
The beauty we all have inside us
The beauty we can see and feel and never explain
The beauty that lifts us up
The beauty that makes us want to live more
The beauty that makes us reach out to God
The beauty we want to thank God for
The beauty of lilacs
The beauty of autumn leaves
The beauty of the people we love
The beauty that pervades life
The beauty that turns away from us
And will not let us be a part of it
The beauty we hold on to fragilely
As a driven leaf
The beauty the beauty the beauty
Oh life oh God of goodness oh death
The beauty we can never see
And the Beauty within us all
Oh God
The Beauty in us and Beyond us all.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Hell is paved with great granite blocks hewn from the hearts of those who said, I can do no other.
quote by Heywood Broun
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The word democracy comes from the Greek and means, literally, government by the people.
quote by Robert Welch
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Classic nineteenth century European imperialists believed they were literally on a mission. I don't believe that the imperialists these days have that same sense of public service. They are simply pirates.
quote by John Pilger
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Somebody said to me, 'But the Beatles were anti-materialistic.' That's a huge myth. John and I literally used to sit down and say, 'Now, let's write a swimming pool.'
quote by Paul McCartney
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I don't buy into any of that hogwash. They put that out to sell tickets. It's just a classic horror movie, with the Greek drama formula of good versus evil, and lots of fear.
quote by Margot Kidder
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Sing To Me
Ligeia is my Greek siren singer.
Singing warmhearted songs of happiness
At night, I waking at sunrise to her
Indescribable Psyche* loveliness.
Although oracles consulted are wise
And state her beauty is too great for me.
To leave her on a mountaintop advised
Placate the jealous gods I’ll not agree.
Unlike Eros**, Ligeia lights each lamp
And knows her man that loves her every night.
She’ll not make compromises -not this vamp!
So serenade me Ligeia, excite
My fancies. Sing to me songs that we love
The kind we dream and those still undreamed of.
* Greek goddess of the soul and one of exquisite grace and beauty.
** Greek god of love, husband of Psyche.
poem by Albert Ahearn
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To visit templesTo visit temples
I visit temples and conduct rites
More to please the priest than the deities.
I visit temples and do sacrifices
More to bribe the God than cleanse myself.
I visit temples and do worships
More to fake being pious than be so.
I visit temples and give offerings
To make clean myself of sins for fresh ones.
18.01.2010
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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The School
I WAS not drowsy though the scholars droned.
Hearing the music that they made of Greek,
Whenever Helen's unforgotten face
Sent other young men whisking off to war;
Hearing much mention of the hecatombs,
And Pericles, and fishes that were purple,
Temples in white, and trees that they named olive;
And thinking always of proud Athens shining
Upon her hill, that slanted to her sea:
Equipped with Grecian thoughts, how could I live
Among my father's folk? My father's house
Was narrow and his fields were nauseous.
I kicked his clods for being common dirt,
Worthy a world which never could be Greek;
Cursed the paternity that planted me
One green leaf in a wilderness of autumn;
And wept, as fitting such a fruitful spirit
Sealed in a yellow tomb.
The Lord preserves his saints for Christian uses.
He sent a pair of providential eyes.
They would have sat in any witless head,
Although I deemed them deep as classic seas,
As strange as any woman written smiling,
And much more near; the merest modern eyes,
The first my Athens faced; and yet her lamp,
It flickered rather low.
Then he commanded me to scrutiny
As to a fingered thing of no great matter,
A circumstantial sorry little coin.
A friendly thing, I owned, to lie so warm
Against the side of any friendless man;
And in the hand--O if the happy hand
Accommodate the cunning rounded scepter,
Then is dominion seated in that palm,
And coveting is seated in men's eyes.
Make haste, my hands, about your own inclosures!
And what were dead Greek empires to me then?
Dishonored, by Apollo, and forgot.
poem by John Crowe Ransom
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Beauty, Beautious, Beautiful
Beauty is not a superficial form
Each has their own in essential nature
And in the actions they perform
Until the dissolution of their life
To leave beauty’s impressions in our hearts
Yesterdays beauty never leaves or departs.
Beauty is all around
Each and every place it may be found
As you look with open eyes
Upon the forms that nature makes
Then man seeks to imitate
Yearning to match that beauty all around.
Beauty if you cannot find
Beauty must be in mind
Beauty is in purity
Beauty of simplicity
Beauty runs right through and through
Beauty in me, and them, and you.
Beauty, beauteous, beautiful
Beauty in heaven
Beauty in fire
Beauty in earth
And finally beauty in a simple verse.
poem by David Taylor
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4. Ruined
The old roman ruins
Turned pillars to dust
The weather being fierce
Where the irons now rust
Huge hand carved blocks
Lying roughly askew
With masons initials
Still showing from new
Like a giants been shopping
With a huge stack of tins
He took from the bottom
Where the tumble begins
The old roman ruins
What a sight to be seen
They will all turn to dust
Where the ruins have been
poem by David Threadgold (2008)
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The Sound Of Grecian Music
The sound of Grecian music where the Greek diners eat
From the Athenian restaurant it floats across the street
And a beautiful Greek songstress with the music sings along
One could listen to the music and the singer all night long.
Greek music and Greek poetry is in a class of it's own
And the legends of Greek history by history not outgrown
And there is life in Greek music it has a bubbling sound
It makes you want to shake your feet and to it dance around.
And when the diners have drunk and eaten the dining tables are put away
And the dancers will be dancing till the small hours of the new day
They sing as they dance in a Greek ring around the timbered floor
And enjoy themselves as the Greeks do for three hours or even more.
The marvellous sound of Grecian music from the Athenian restaurant nearby
Is food to the soul and senses and something to enjoy
To the quiet street on a friday night such happiness they bring
Till the small hours of the morning they laugh and dance and sing.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Natures Beauty
Beauty is not at your face.
Beauty is at nature.
Beauty is not at your home.
Beauty is at nature.
Beauty is not at your book.
It can only seen in nature.
Nature is the only thing
that had a huge beauty.
Beauty is not at anything.
It is only at nature.
poem by Skywin Shajilal
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For Ammonis, who died at 29, in 610
Raphael, they're asking you to write a few lines
as an epitaph for the poet Ammonis:
something very tasteful and polished. You can do it,
you're the one to write something suitable
for the poet Ammonis, our Ammonis.
Of course you'll speak about his poems-
but say something too about his beauty,
about that subtle beauty we loved.
Your Greek is always elegant and musical.
But we want all your craftsmanship now.
Our sorrow and our love move into a foreign language.
Pour your Egyptian feeling into the Greek you use.
Raphael, your verses, you know, should be written
so they contain something of our life within them,
so the rhythm, so every phrase clearly shows
that an Alexandrian is writing about an Alexandrian.
poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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Look Upon Your Beauty
To look upon your beauty,
Illuminates our soul
How fortunate we are
that we have found the beauty so true
that everyone dreams about and makes us whole.
There is no corner, in the world that your
love and beauty cannot fill
for if the world starts causing waves,
your beauty makes them lay still
poem by Timothy Honeycutt
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Mt. Lykaion
Alone on Lykaion since man hath been
Stand on the height two columns, where at rest
Two eagles hewn of gold sit looking East
Forever; and the sun goes down between.
Far down the mountain's oval green
An order keeps the falling stones abreast.
Below within the chaos last and least
A river like a curl of light is seen.
Beyond the river lies the even sea,
Beyond the sea another ghost of sky,--
O God, support the sickness of my eye
Lest the far space and long antiquity
Suck out my heart, and on this awful ground
The great wind kill my little shell with sound.
poem by Trumbull Stickney
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Hey! I am so restless - Original by Rabindranath Tagore
Hey! I am so restless
I long for the Farthest!
Days go by one by one
I look through the window
To see if He has come –
I want His touch so very much!
O the Farthest, the huge Farthest
Your flute’s music makes me impressed
So I forget I have no wing
And this small earth is my address!
I am absent-minded!
O the huge Farthest
I am indifferent as if I am dead!
In the sunny idle day
Trees make sound and shadows play!
The sky seems like your blue eyes!
If you could come here to stay!
O the Farthest, the huge Farthest
Your flute’s music makes me impressed
So I forget my room is locked
It’s of no use to try my best!
poem by Asif Andalib
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