Constantine Petrou Cavafy revisited

A spread from Constantine Cavafy's passport, listing "Poet" as occupation and two discrete birth dates, both erroneous.

The City

You said, “I will go to another place, to another shore.
Another city can be found that’s better than this.
All that I struggle for is doomed, condemned to failure;
and my heart is like a corpse interred.
How long will my mind stagger under this misery?
Wherever I turn, wherever I look
I see the blackened ruins of my life,
which for years on end I squandered and wrecked and ravaged”.

You will find no other place, no other shores.
This city will possess you, and you’ll wander the same
streets. In these same neighborhoods you’ll grow old;
in these same houses you’ll turn gray.
Always you’ll return to this city. Don’t even hope for another.
There’s no boat for you, there’s no other way out.
In the way you’ve destroyed your life here,
in this little corner, you’ve destroyed it everywhere else.

Translated by Stratis Haviaras


Candles

Days yet to come stretch out before us
like a row of candles, burning brightly ―
vivacious candles, golden and warm.

The days that have passed fall behind us,
burned-out candles in a dismal row:
those closest at hand still smoking;
cold candles, melted and deformed.

I don’t want to look; their state saddens me;
it saddens me to remember their initial glow.
I look ahead, instead, to my lighted candles.

I don’t want to turn back to see, with horror,
how quickly the dark row of candles has lengthened,
how rapidly the number of dead candles has grown.

Translated by Stratis Haviaras

Poetry and Photo Credit: Cavafy.com