I GAVE YOU A CHANCE
AND YOU FLED
AND I, PENELOPE,
WEAVE MISTAKES TO MYSELF
TANGLED IN MY LOOM…
TRANSLATION
Pacatatu's Blog
Poetry, Life, being an immigrant, Saudades, Writing…
Poetry, Life, being an immigrant, Saudades, Writing…
Blog at WordPress.com.Ben Eastaugh and Chris Sternal-Johnson.
Pacatatu's Blog
8 comments
Comments feed for this article
September 5, 2011 at 6:03 PM
claudia
intriguing pic you paint with such few words..
September 11, 2011 at 7:19 PM
pacatatu
thank you for your comment and for visiting. It really means a lot!
September 16, 2011 at 5:20 AM
kvennarad
I love classical allusion in modern poetry. Coincidentally I wrote a poem this year about the return of Odysseus. May I share it with you?
M
__________
Marie Marshall
writer/poet/editor/blogger
Scotland
http://kvennarad.wordpress.com
September 16, 2011 at 10:36 PM
pacatatu
absolutely – I really like your writing style and your choice of words. I learn from how and what you write. You see, English is not my mother tongue and, a lot of times, it is really hard for me to express the idea through the poem as it came in my mind in Portuguese. And Portuguese is so sonorous…
September 16, 2011 at 11:54 PM
kvennarad
You are totally right about Portuguese. I don’t speak a word of it (well, strictly speaking that’s not true – I can say ‘nao falo Portugues’ and ‘obrigada’) but I love the singing of Mariza, a wonderful singer of Poruguese and African heritage, and I can remember the singing of Brazilian Joao Gilberto from when I was much younger.
Anyhow, ‘Odysseus comes home’. I don’t know how it will work in this reply field, because it has very long lines. This is a characteristic of my free verse because I often feel that modern poets are afraid to use long lines.
‘Odysseus comes home’
And so it was a closer truth that when he came to her after many years
she was in a divine blindness so she would not know his face
but would recognise the strength of his hand at the bow
yet he would know the dusty flagstones of his palace and the steps
and the wooden pillars and the plain tiles on the roof
he would touch the pillars to feel their smoothness smell his hands
kiss the pillars as a baby does
At last when everything was quiet and homely and she could see him
even though it was through a sea mist and his eyes were ocean-grey
and her sobs were the cold cries of the gulls and the truth had stolen over her
like a cloak placed by her childhood nurse and she was to be pitied deeply
for knowing and seeing and believing that truth
(sometimes a person who hears the truth is to be pitied)
she said to him – What do you desire more than anything else?
and he said – Breakfast
because he had not eaten for seven days
September 21, 2011 at 1:16 PM
pacatatu
Beautiful – more rounded Odysseus – still a hero, but I can see his humanity. Thank you for sharing this with me!
October 9, 2011 at 1:13 PM
doc_retro@juno.com
This is well-done, and I am a lover of the Classical, too. Thank you for sharing it. By the way, are you familiar with a book titled, “Odysseus in America”? it’s about the homecoming, and is told with reference to the stories of American soldiers coming back from Vietnam. The author (Jonathan Shay) is a psychiatrist at the Boston Veterans administration hospital. It’s a companion work to his “Achilles in Vietnam.”
I always appreciate the opportunity to apply the Classics to modern life.
October 10, 2011 at 12:21 AM
pacatatu
I have not heard about these books – will look them up, though. Thanks for letting me know and thank you for stopping by! I do appreciate it!