Κυριακή 16 Ιουνίου 2013

Του Νικηφόρου Βρεττάκου

 Η τιμή

Ο ουρανός και η γης με τίμησαν με τον πόνο.
Το έμαθα αργότερα, όταν κατάλαβα
πως το καλύτερο φως γίνεται απ’ το σκοτάδι’
μετά που ξεχείλισε μέσα μου η ποίηση
κι αρχίσαν ν’ ανάβουνε κεριά από χρόνο.
 

Ο χορός του κορυδαλλού

Απόσπασμα
Κι η σιωπηλή παρουσία σου μ' έμαθε πως σιωπή δεν υπάρχει.
Άκουσα να θροΐζει η ψυχή σου όπως ένας πευκώνας το καλοκαίρι.
Τα δάχτυλά σου μ' αγγίξαν σαν ένα σμήνος πουλιών.
Κι όταν χαμογελάς ακούω μιαν άρπα.
Κι όταν σκέφτεσαι ακούω που σκέφτεσαι.
Κι όταν αγαπάς τα παιδιά που ευλόγησεν ο Ιησούς, πάλι, ακούω.
Κι ακούω το ρόδινο σύννεφο όταν ακουμπάει στο βουνό.
Κι ακούω το στάχυ όταν πίνει μια σταγόνα νερού.
Κι όταν τη νύχτα κοιτάζεις τον ουρανό
ακούω τ' αστέρι που πλέει μες στο βλέμμα σου.
Κι είναι αυτό που ακούω πολύ δυνατότερο
απ' αυτό που γράφω κι απ' αυτό που μπορώ να σου ειπώ.
Όλα είναι γραμμένα. Αρκεί να μπορεί να διαβάζει η καρδιά
τα ψηφία της κτίσεως. Οι στίχοι είναι αντίλαλοι.
Απόψε τελειώσανε όλες οι λέξεις μου.
Ακούω το ποτάμι ζητώντας να ξεκλέψω τα λόγια του.
Αφουγκράζομαι στο άπειρο το χαίρε των κόσμων
που παραπλέουν ο ένας τον άλλο – χαιρετιώνται κι αποχωρίζονται.
Αλλά η γλώσσα του σύμπαντος έχει μια μόνο λέξη.
Όλα λένε: «Αγάπη». Κι όταν γράφω «αγάπη» δεν έχω πια άλλο.
Αλλά εγώ σ' αγαπώ. Και γι' αυτό κομματιάζω
τη λέξη «αγάπη» σε χιλιάδες ρινίσματα
και ζυμώνω τα χρώματα, όχι σα να 'ναι να ειπώ ή να γράψω,
αλλά
σα να 'μαι ο παντοκράτορας ενός μεγάλου περβολιού
και να θέλουν τα χέρια μου να υφάνουνε κρίνα.

Νικηφόρος Βρεττάκος

Τετάρτη 5 Ιουνίου 2013

Negative emotions? Rethink it...

For further reading, click

There isn’t any such thing as a negative emotion. There are negative things that we do with our emotions, but our emotions themselves are neither negative nor positive. They simply are.

Consider anger. When we are angry, we might express it as hostility—emitting unmistakable negativity, bristly and mean-spirited, tight and heartless. Yes, we are angry, but we are filtering—and forcing— it through a darkly twisted lens, so that it is expressed not as clean anger (that is, anger free of aggression, blaming, and shaming) but as hostility.

Does this mean that anger itself is therefore a negative emotion? No. It means we have handled our anger negatively, putting a mean-spirited spin on it. Our choice. Hostility is not a negative emotion but rather a negative framing and expression of anger.

Anger itself can be a positive force: getting angry that you have just lost your job may give you the energy and sheer drive to pursue more fitting work. Likewise, getting angry about the abuse you are suffering in a relationship will help fuel you to form healthy boundaries, providing much of the motivation and strength needed to either improve the relationship or leave it.

Those of us caught up in spiritual bypassing tend to slap the labels of “positive” and “negative” onto emotions as if such qualities were absolute givens. But the more we investigate the reality of our lives, the clearer it becomes that ascribing qualities like “negative” and “positive” to emotions is inevitably a context-bound undertaking.

Adapted from Spiritual Bypassing: When Spirituality Disconnects Us from What Really Matters, by Robert Augustus Masters, published by North Atlantic Books, copyright © 2010 by Robert Augustus Masters. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

Source: tricycle.com

Κυριακή 2 Ιουνίου 2013

Pati Smith's poem "Reflecting Robert" by Maria Popova

“Blessedness is within us all.”
“The mere addition of meter does not in itself entitle a work to the name of poem, for nothing can permanently please which does not contain in itself the reason why it is so and not otherwise,”Coleridge asserted“Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge — it is as immortal as the heart of man,” Wordsworth famously proclaimed. Nowhere is this dual definition more ablaze with life than in The Coral Sea (public library) by the eclectically brilliant Patti Smith — a breathtaking collection of prose poems exorcising Smith’s profound grief for her lifelong spirit-mate, beloved photographerRobert Mapplethorpe (1946 — 1989). She describes the collection as “a season in grief” and writes:
All that I knew of him encrypted within a small suite of prose poems. They speak of his love for art, his patron Sam Wagstaff, and his aring for me. But most importantly his resolute will to live, that could not be contained, not even in death.
Her short foreword stirs the soul intensely:
The first time I saw Robert he was sleeping. I stood over him, this boy of twenty, who sensing my presence opened his eyes and smiled. With few words he became my friend, my compeer, my beloved adventure.
When he became ill I wept and could not stop weeping. He scolded me for that, not with words but with a simple look of reproach, and I ceased.
When I saw him last we sat in silence and he rested his head on my shoulder. I watched the light changing over his hands, over his work, and over the whole of our lives. Later, returning to his bed, we said goodbye. But as I was leaving something stopped me and I went back to his room. He was sleeping. I stood over him, a dying man, who sensing my presence opened his yes and smiled.
When he passed away I could not weep so I wrote. Then I took the pages and set them away. Here are those pages, my farewell to my friend, my adventure, my unfettered joy.
At the recent opening of exhibition of the same title at Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center — which also gave us Smith’s delightful lettuce soup recipe for starving artists — I recorded Smith’s moving reading of some poems from the book and photographed the handwritten originals of the poems, below, on display at the CAC.
Blessedness is within us all
It lies upon the long scaffold
Patrols the vaporous hall
In our pursuits, though still, we venture forth
Hoping to grasp a handful of cloud and return
Unscathed, cloud in hand. We encounter
Space, fist, violin, or this — an immaculate face
Of a boy, somewhat wild, smiling in the sun.
He raises his hand, as if in carefree salute
Shading eyes that contain the thread of God.
Soon they will gather power, disenchantment
They will reflect enlightenment, agony
They will reveal the process of love
They will, in an hour alone, shed tears.
His mouth a circlet, a baptismal font
Opening wide as the lips of a damsel
Sounding the dizzying extremes.
The relativity of vein, the hip of unrest
For the sake of wing there is shoulder.
For symmetry there is blade.
He kneels, humiliates, he pierces her side.
Offering spleen to the wolves of the forest.
He races across the tiles, the human board.
Virility, coquetry all a game — well played.
Immersed in luminous disgrace, he lifts
As a slave, a nymph, a fabulous hood
As a rose, a thief of life, he will parade
Nude crowned with leaves, immortal.
He will sing of the body, his truth
He will increase the shining neck
Pluck airs toward our delight
Of the waning
The blossoming
The violent charade
But who will sing of him?
Who will sing of his blessedness?
The blameless eye, the radiant grin
For he, his own messenger, is gone
He has leapt through the orphic glass
To wander eternally
In search of perfection
His blue ankles tattooed with stars.

Patti Smith

Click here, if you want to listen to Patti reading live her poem.