Thursday, May 3, 2018

Portrait of corruption





   The Times published this portrait the
   other day, and I thought it brought
   out so well the obsessive compulsions
   of the American President that I al-
   most overlooked the spell they've suc-
   cessfully revealed through the noble
   implement for dealing with them. I re-
   fer to that wand of superior magic,
   of instantaneous manipulation, in the
   President's anxious grasp. He, Jobs,
   and Zuckerberg have embedded their
   place in history with the abandonment
   of reflection, itself. They have very
   much less the more self-confident il-
   lusions of literacy. There will be no
   corrective mallet, only detoxification.
   We are witnessing a greatness, surely.















Jasjyot Singh Hans
The New York Times©





Tuesday, May 1, 2018

May Day


         I give my hand to justice, 
         Diaphanous fountain, sublimest spring,
         My sky is deep and changeless
         All I love is incessantly reborn
         All I love is always at its beginning.



















Odysseus Elytis
1911 - 1996
  [final verse]
Edmund Keeley and
  Philip Sherrard
  editing and translation
Voices of Modern Greece
Princeton University Press, 1981©