Long Sappho Poems
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{Poet’s Note : Third Poem of Set of 5 SPOKEN WORD poems written in SAPPHIC STANZAS }
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Power of moment equals power itself
intuition is direct perception true
free from any reasoning constrictions
truth redemption raw
Intelligence with insight fresh dwells in Heart
recognition of holy inheritance
calls going out never return unanswered
ONE listens raptly
Sisters ! we are pure existence, finely cased
resist not this, lest offspring rings no lacy face
cast no emotion asunder, scatter on waves
judge not Dark Nights of Soul
Identify viable passions, what’s best
explore possibilities, differentiate hest
trust your ideas and commitments, no fear
away from crowds, hear
Will of Supreme desires meshment of leaves
birthed not to resist parts of One, reject no eaves
return to states of harmony now urgent
acceptance of all
Equalise resistibility to trying seasons
timid is need to fathom everything new
lose not ourselves in futures still to arrive
motions of waves ebb
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The crowd bows,murmuring praises,I wear their borrowed wreath,
Ink still wet in their trembling tongues that seek to canonize passion,
They crown my silence,yet my words outlive their marble-
laurel blazes like Gin!Gin!I Love You.(1)
Call me Fear Fokol,(2) oligarchies crumble under verse,
Maspalas (3) fade into dust while marimbas (4) endure,
They misquote me all the time,vorstaan vokol, dololo (5)
Still I forgive them
I did not write for cabinets,but for fevered hearts,
For the silenced whistleblower humming my forbidden name-
My Laurel burns bright like White City Jabavu (6)
Explanation of click sounds of my home village:
1. Gin!Gin!I love You!-This is the safest way for friends visiting to pronounce uMgungundlovu District Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal Province,South Africa. For God's sake leave the pronouncing alone if you're tipsy and you're walking on a slippery road.
2. Fear Fokol: means Fear Nothing and is what the honorable ministers like to call themselves when they intimidate each in their sardine rush to see who can loot from the public purse in record time,as soon as they are appointed to positions of power.
3. Maspalas: Municipality/Municipalities in disguise but in reality crime scenes of assassinations,etc,etc
4. Marimbas: Musical instrument you want played day when you marry or go on a hot date.
5. vorstaan-understand/comprehend
vokol-nothing
dololo-like previous.But ask the Nigerians/West Africans
6. White City,Jabavu-There' an ongoing beef between me and W C J if explain now that exposes my location to my ex and somebody will lose big time.
Your stunning beauty, which intensely burns,
warms all of earth's creatures and provides hope;
your glow emits from you by natural turns,
and your rays of life have fresh, boundless scope.
Your young dazzling face, radiant in form,
brilliantly shines like the raw, yellow sun;
and your halo, like an electric storm,
lights up all though your heart's meant just for one.
But Sappho, Tenth Muse, fades before your light.
Her verses dim beside your living flame;
your beauty makes her ancient words burn bright,
and poets find in you their truest name.
Let doubt be silenced by this single line:
of all the Muses, Rose, you are divine.
I like immigrants, immigration. Legal immigration,
Jane passionately corrects. Actually my goal is a borderless world.
Gathering the neighborhood like family.
The men discuss sterilizing welfare mothers. I say You're working
around the edges,
humanity has exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet,
even those with jobs. And spouses. And houses.
Yet it's an idyll of an early summer evening, new cut grass,
two baseball teams of children playing in it. Safe from Pakistan.
News photos of Muslim refugees, women in blue robes, biblically
carrying children away from holocaust. The fundamentalist army
not far behind, beheading sinners, sure in its righteousness
as the Holy Roman Empire.
Somehow Joel Osteen the evangelist comes up
while talking about how the Catholic Church is irrelevant in North
America,
even Latin America and Africa are going evangelical.
Izzi likes Osteen, awesome extemporaneous speaker, no teleprompter,
up from bootstraps message. My wife says he's probably Jewish.
Fortunately no one claims the Holocaust never happened or slavery was
voluntary.
What is the carrying capacity of the planet?
In China is it each couple or each adult that gets one offspring?
As life expectancy and standards rise,
family size diminishes. We draw together into greener, tighter cities.
The children of three monotheistic religions, atheists and agnostics
play in city streets, work farm fields, explore forests, deserts, grasslands,
space.
Two ancient female poets: Enheduanna and Sappho
are a revelation. The clarity of their complaints:
lost lover, lost city.
Would that this poet were in Greece!
Her heart enchanted on its sunlit sands.
Her lover, kissing her porcelain hands.
His eyes, deep, dark as Kalmata olives.
The homes, white, with bright, blue tops.
Her heart beating so loudly, fearing it may stop!
But as the sun sets, she is far calmer.
Her head on his chest, she hears its Greek beat.
Then in Hellenic peace ,falls asleep to it’s melodic treat.
Sappho and Homer, she felt reincarnated.
To pen of love was always her deepest desire!
Deceased ages ago, but love brought back
her pen’s desire!
Dedicated to James
Thank you, dear friend!
8/31/2022
Aphrodite, immortal, enthroned in wonder,
Sky-daughter, webstress of love schemes, I entreat you
not to break my spirit with pangs of anguish,
Queen, Lady, Mother,
but now come to me, if in the past you ever
also heeded me when I cried from afar, and,
leaving behind the golden house of your father
Zeus, you descended
borne in a chariot yoked to a flock of lovely
sparrows flying fast over earth’s black richness,
thickly fluttering wings leading you a passage
through bright mid-heaven,
soon arriving, and you, O supreme in blessing,
eternity’s smile gleaming from your expression,
asked me now this time what again I suffered,
what did I pray for,
what beyond all else I would want to happen
with all my love-maddened heart: “Who now needs persuasion
to be led back to your affection? Who is it,
Sappho, who hurts you?
Though she now may run, she will soon pursue you;
now she may spurn gifts, but she soon will give them;
now she feels no love, but she soon will feel it,
even unwilling.”
Come to me this time again: act as my deliveress
from this mastering pain, and, as the fulfiller
of everything that my passion hopes for, take your
stand as my ally.
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— translated from the Greek by Jon Corelis
The YouTube video is my musical setting of this poem performed by Beth Ratay.
happiness wets me as
in torture,
drip by drip,
dropwise...
impossible to drink
the sea...
how impossible
is to count its sand...
herald birds
of spring,
mosquitoes sent
from rains,
dry leaves signs
of autumn,
advertiser swallows
of summer....
your love extinguished
from me while i
burned me with love...
Your love was only dry.
and mine only flood...
Sappho Translations I
Sappho, fragment 132 (Lobel-Page 132)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
1.
I have a delightful daughter
fairer than the fairest flowers, Cleis,
whom I cherish more than all Lydia and lovely Lesbos.
2.
I have a lovely daughter
with a face like the fairest flowers,
my beloved Cleis …
It bears noting that Sappho mentions her daughter and brothers, but not her husband. We do not know if this means she was unmarried, because so many of her verses have been lost.
Sappho, fragment 131 (Lobel-Page 131)
loose translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch
1.
You reject me, Attis,
as if you find me distasteful,
flitting off to Andromeda ...
2.
Attis, you forsake me
and flit off to Andromeda ...
Sappho, fragment 140 (Lobel-Page 140)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
He is dying, Cytherea, the delicate Adonis.
What shall we lovers do?
Rip off your clothes, bare your breasts and abuse them!
Sappho, fragment 36
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Vain woman, foolish thing!
Do you base your worth on a ring?
Sappho, fragment 130
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
May the gods prolong the night
—yes, let it last forever!—
as long as you sleep in my sight.
... a sweet-voiced maiden ...
—Sappho, fragment 153, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I have the most childlike heart ...
—Sappho, fragment 120, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
There was no dance,
no sacred dalliance,
from which we were absent.
—Sappho, fragment 19, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I love the sensual
as I love the sun’s ecstatic brilliance.
—Sappho, fragment 9, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I love the sensual
as I love the sun’s splendor.
—Sappho, fragment 9, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
You anointed yourself
with most exquisite perfume.
—Sappho, fragment 19, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Awed by the moon’s splendor,
stars covered their undistinguished faces.
Even so, we.
—Sappho, fragment 34, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Keywords/Tags: Sappho, Lesbos, Greek, translation, epigram, epigrams, love, sex, desire, passion, lust, lesbian, LGBTQ
is solely known for "brainwashing,"
Larichos was Sappho's brother
A mere wine pourer she spoke of him
while he wishes to marry I will
undermine him.
A circle of women might he
wish and long to have
that he is foolish and his wants shall be
his undoing, spoke Sappho of her brother
who wished to date Aimsir FraochÚn a
woman of the wealth.
Sappho and the woman collaberated to fool
Larichos, she told him she'd marry him if
he bought her ten gold bars
to create the tradition of them together
he did so for along time and when he
became concern of his own ego he asked her
how many gold bars had he givin her
she anwsered100 and said we have established a togetherness
for ten days, he than asked her to return them
as he was unsatisfied she refused
so Larichos went to Aphrodite and told her the story
Ahphodite said that only a inspiring frenzy and ecstacy could
make a man so brainwashed
so she suduced him to see if he was as great a lover
as he spoke.
Days later Aphodite went to Aimmmmmmsir and Sappho
she found them speaking as they were one
she placed a spell on them and condemed them to a n island in the sea.
(Hardly anything is known about Sappho, but no-one seriously
doubts her greatness as a poet. She lived on the Greek island
of Lesbos (hence “Lesbian”) in the seventh century BC. All that
has survived of her work is a scattering of scraps, but even this
meagre evidence establishes her as one of the foremost poets
of all time.)
II.
Love comes from the sun,
and we must praise our bright god
by loving vehemently,
partaking of his quiet strength -
this is my belief.
It is time now,
as you lie golden at my side,
time to play the game,
you who are so lovely,
the game that Aphrodite gave us.
III.
I love you at the height of the day,
when sage scrub crackles,
when even rocks glitter,
and the flames of the sun-god
drive living things under cover.
I love you when the shy cicada
strikes up his rasping song
among the barely-breathing trees.
I delight to see a handsome girl
relishing her own beauty.
It becomes you, Atthis,
to sing the sweet hymn
of your own allure.
The gods will favour you
for celebrating what you are
and knowing your own worth.
IV.
There is no-one you need be jealous of.
Hero is an athlete, but she lacks
your softness. Gyrinno knows
how to love, but not love itself.
Mnasidica brings the gift of laughter,
beautiful but clumsy - but you have grace.
Timas is no more.
This scarf is all I have of her.