nice, mister skafe, sir.
i like christian bok's crystallographies alot.
here's a page:
http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/bok/sapphire.html
but the book is way better.
this is also cool--the webversion of a chapter from eunoia:
http://www.ubu.com/contemp/bok/eunoia_final.html
i have to say that i really don't know what poetry is except when folk who make objects say one or more of those objects is poetry.
this one is clearly a poem.
i dont really think in terms of favorites, but it has come to mind many many times since 2001:
Quote:
Waiting For The Barbarians
-What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?
The barbarians are due here today.
-Why isn't anything going on in the senate?
Why are the senators sitting there without legislating?
Because the barbarians are coming today.
What's the point of senators making laws now?
Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.
-Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting enthroned at the city's main gate,
in state, wearing the crown?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor's waiting to receive their leader.
He's even got a scroll to give him,
loaded with titles, with imposing names.
-Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.
-Why don't our distinguished orators turn up as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.
-Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home lost in thought?
Because night has fallen and the barbarians haven't come.
And some of our men who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.
Now what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
Those people were a kind of solution.
Constantine P. Cavafy
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