At the opening of the exhibition Follicle / why does it feel so good sometimes when things aren't completely finished '' the young fashion designer Angelos Bratis treated us to a performance in which one of the performers was reading poems by C.P. Cavafy (1863-1933):
I'VE LOOKED SO MUCH....
''I've looked on beauty so much
that my vision overflows with it.
The body's lines. Red lips. Sensual limbs.
Hair as though stolen from Greek statues,
always lovely, ever uncombed,
and falling slightly over pale foreheads.
Figures of love, as my poetry desired them
.... in the nights when I was young.''
AT THE THEATRE
''I got bored looking at the stage
and raised my eye to the box circle.
In one of the boxes I saw you
with your strange beauty, you dissolute youthfulness.
My thoughts turned back at once
to all they'd told me about that afternoon;
my mind and body were aroused.
And as I gazed enthralled
at your languid beauty, your languid youthfulness,
your tastefully discriminating dress,
in my imagination I kept picturing you
the way they'd talked about you that afternoon.''
I'VE BROUGHT TO ART
''I sit in a mood of reverie.
I broughtto Art desires and sensations:
things half-glimpsed,
faces or lines, certain indistinct memories
of unfulfilled love affairs. Let me submit to Art:
Art knows how to shape forms of Beauty,
almost imperceptibly completing life,
blending impressions, blending day with day.''
BODY, REMEMBER ....
''Body, remember not only how much you were loved,
not only the beds you lay on,
but also those desires that glowed openly
in eyes that looked at you,
trembled for you in the voices -
only some chance obstacle frustrated them.
Now that it's all finally in the past,
it seems almost as if you gave yourself
to those desires too - how they glowed,
remember, in eyes that looked at you,
remember, body, how they trembled for you in those voices.''
MONOTONY
''One monotonous day follows another
equally monotonous. The same things
will happen again, and then will happen again,
the same moments will come and go.
A month passes by and brings another month.
Easy to guess what lies ahead:
all of yesterday's boredom.
And tomorrow ends up no longer like tomorrow.''