Lawrence Durrell
I am quite alone. I am neither happy nor unhappy; I lie suspended like a hair or a feather in the cloudy mixtures of memory. — Lawrence Durrell, Justine, Book 1 of The Alexandria Quartet (Faber & Faber, 2020)
Category: Egyptian Culture
C.P. Cavafy
Like beautiful bodies of the dead who had not grown oldand they shut them, with tears, in a brilliant mausoleum,with roses at the head and jasmine at the feet —this is what desires resemble that have passedwithout fulfillment; without any of them having achieveda night of sensual delight, or a morning of brightness. ― C.P.… Continue reading C.P. Cavafy
C. P. Cavafy
Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrongand my heart lies buried as though it were something dead. — C. P. Cavafy, from “The City,” C. P. Cavafy: Collected Poems, trans. by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard (Princeton University Press, 1992)
C.P. Cavafy
On hearing about powerful love, respond, be movedlike an aesthete. Only, fortunate as you’ve been,remember how much your imagination created for you.This first, and then the rest—the lesser loves—that you experienced and enjoyedin your life: the more real and tangible.Of loves like these you were not deprived — C.P. Cavafy, “Hearing of Love,” Collected Poems.… Continue reading C.P. Cavafy
C.P. Cavafy
Return often and take me, beloved sensation, return and take me — when the memory of the body awakens, and an old desire runs again through the blood; when the lips and the skin remember, and the hands feel as if they touch again. Return often and take me at night, when the lips and… Continue reading C.P. Cavafy
C.P. Cavafy
there are pains that will not stay quiet in the heart. They thirst to get out and give vent to grieving. — C.P. Cavafy, from “A Love,” The Complete Poems, transl. by Rae Dalven (Mariner Books, 1976)
C.P. Cavafy
On the right—no, opposite—a wardrobe with a mirror. In the middle the table where he wrote, and the three big wicker chairs. Beside the window the bed where we made love so many times. They must still be around somewhere, those old things. Beside the window the bed; the afternoon sun used to touch half… Continue reading C.P. Cavafy
C.P. Cavafy
Like beautiful bodies of the dead who had not grown old and they shut them, with tears, in a magnificent mausoleum, with roses at the head and jasmine at the feet — that is how desires look that have passed without fulfillment; without one of them having achieved a night of sensual delight, or a… Continue reading C.P. Cavafy
C.P. Cavafy
I should like to relate this memory … but it is so faded now … scarcely anything is left — because it lies far off, in the years of my early manhood. A skin as if made of jasmine … that night in August— was it August?—that night… I can just barely remember the eyes;… Continue reading C.P. Cavafy
C.P. Cavafy
I do not want to turn back, lest I see and shudder — how quickly the somber line lengthens, how quickly the burnt-out candles multiply. — C.P. Cavafy, from “Candles,” The Complete Poems, transl. by Rae Dalven (Mariner Books, 1976)
The Vale of Soul-Making 