People and Suitcases July 27, 2004
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Don’t leave your wet towel on the table.
It’s time to start straightening up.
In a month or so, another summer will be over.
What a sad demobilization, putting away bathing suits,
sunglasses, short-sleeves, sandals,
twilight colors on a luminous sea. Soon,
the outdoor cinemas will be closed, their chairs
stacked in a corner. The boats will sail
less often. Safely back home, the lovely tourist girls
will sit up late, shuffling through color glossies
of swimmers, fishermen, oarsmen–not us. Already,
up in the loft, our suitcases wait to find out
when we’ll be leaving, where we’re going this time,
and for how long. You also know that inside
those scuffed, hollow suitcases there’s a bit of string,
a couple of rubber bands, and not a single flag.
–Yannis Ritsos
translated by Martin McKinsey
Pablo Neruda: There’s no Forgetting July 24, 2004
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Pablo Neruda was often called the “poet of enslaved humanity.� Politically active, he served in the Chilean Senate as part of the Chilean Communist Party in the 1940s and was Chile’s ambassador to France in the 1970s. Many of Neruda’s poems speak out against oppression and advocate social reform. An actor recites this anguish-ridden excerpt from Neruda’s 1935 poem There’s No Forgetting (Sonata) here
Marlon Brando - Et in Arcadia ego 1 July 9, 2004
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LOS ANGELES – Marlon Brando was cremated after a private memorial service attended by a small group of family members and friends.
The reclusive Brando died July 1 of lung failure at the age of 80.
During his career, he revolutionized Hollywood’s image of a leading man, playing street-tough, emotionally raw characters in “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “On the Waterfront.” He revived his career decades later as the definitive Mafia don in “The Godfather.”
Brando, won two Academy Awards for best actor.
I feel a little lost. I remember him in “A Streetcar Named Desire”. He was not acting, he was The Act. I feel a little empty. Suprisingly, not much was said by the media…I know why, ’cause I know who really controls the media, and he said some truth about’em a couple of years ago, so…
I remember more…
I loved the man, he hated most of the stuff I hate too…
Blanche, Kovalksy, Kazan and I…(my illusion, once upon a time)
my tummie’s turning.Â
the erosion and the rust of time.Â
Pablo Neruda July 8, 2004
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I am the Pablo Bird,
bird of a single feather,
a flier in the clear shadow
and obscure clarity,
my wings are unseen,
my ears resound
when I walk among the trees
or beneath the tombstones
like an unlucky umbrella
or a naked sword,
stretched like a bow
or round like a grape,
I fly on and on not knowing,
wounded in the dark night,
who is waiting for me,
who does not want my song,
who desires my death,
who will not know I’m arriving
and will not come to subdue me,
to bleed me, to twist me,
or to kiss my clothes,
torn by the shrieking wind.
That’s why I come and go,
fly and don’t fly but sing:
I am the furious bird
of the calm storm.
Neruda, Pablo (1904-73). A Chilean poet with an international reputation, Pablo Neruda was also committed to politics and social reform. Often referred to as the “poet of enslaved humanity,” he was awarded the Lenin peace prize in 1953 and the Nobel prize for literature in 1971.Â
“Monotony” July 7, 2004
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One monotonous day is followed
by another monotonous, identical day. The same
things will happen, they will happen again –
the same moments find us and leave us.
A month passes and ushers in another month.
One easily guesses the coming events;
they are the boring ones of yesterday.
And the morrow ends up not resembling a morrow anymore.
Constantine P. Cavafy (190 
(unknown translation)
poetry loses its essence in any translation…Â
