IT MUST HAVE BEEN THE SPIRITS

 

 

recently investigating an interesting Greek poet from the turn of the last century

by C.P. CAVAFY.          this piece spoke to me some.

.

IT MUST HAVE BEEN THE SPIRITS

It must have been the spirits that I drank last night,

it must have been that I was drowsing, I’d been tired all day long.

The black wooden column vanished before me.

with the ancient head, and the dining-room door,

and the armchair, the red one; and the little settee.

In their place came a street in Marseilles.

And freed now, brazenly, my soul

appeared there once again and moved about,

along with the form of a sensitive, pleasure-bent youth–

the dissolute youth: that, too, must be said.

It must have been the spirits that I drank last night,

it must have been that I was drowsing, I’d been tired all day long.

My soul was released; the poor thing, it’s

always constrained by the weight of the years.

My soul was released and it showed me

a sympathique   street in Marseilles,

with the form of a happy, dissolute youth

who never felt ashamed, not he, certainly.

 

C. P. Cavafy

HEY BABY