“By the Seashore” or “Denial “ by George Seferis

George Seferis ( Georgios Seferiadis ) was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1963 for his poetic work and is regarded as one of the major Greek modern poets. He was born near Smyrna in 1900. A stern career diplomat and Greek public servant who travelled extensively, his diplomatic career extended through the  turbulent and challenging times of the Second World War. Seferis was ever the consummate poet. The major themes of his work included, among others, alienation, wandering, and death. Probably one of his most famous poems, was commonly known as”By the Seashore” or “Denial ” in many English poetry translations. This poem practically became a popular anthem for Greece when it was put to music by Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis of “Zorba the Greek” fame, the composer and/or  arranger of the soundtrack for the movie that was based on Nikos Kazantzakis’ novel.

At Seferis’ passing on September 20 th 1971, thousands attended his funeral procession and repeatedly sang in unison the words of this poem to the music of Theodorakis all the way to his final resting place. 

As a Canadian Greek, and a son of Greek immigrant parents who came to Canada, a country seen as the great hope by many immigrants, I have a strong personal connection to this poem and especially now given the current challenging times and trials that Greece and other European countries are experiencing. Once again an exodus of many Greeks is happening, as it happened in the past in the  30’s 40’s and 50’s. At some point and in many ways, we are all immigrants who experience alienation and a wandering in the foreign places of our lives, that become our future homes.

 I have taken some translation and poetic license liberties with Seferis’ poem which I hope may better convey its’ feeling and emotion.
A video of the actual music and lyrics follows.  I have tried to follow in the  translation, the cadence of the lyrics of the song as closely as possible. Hope you enjoy it .

A translation of George Sefereis’ Poem By PWChaltas

“By the Seashore” or “Denial”

By the secret seashore so sweet and small
and so white as the wings of a dove in flight,
we thirsted  at midday,
but the water was undrinkable.
By the seashore we thirsted at midday, but the water was undrinkable.
On the blonde sand we traced and wrote her name.
Beautifully the gentle sea breeze blew
across the grains of sand,
and her name all but disappeared.

Beautiful breeze you blew and erased
all the traces of her lovely name .
With what heart
and with what breath
and with what great desire and pathos did we live and take our lives in so much error.
And so we changed our lives and changed our paths .
We lived and took our lives in error,
and so we changed our lives and paths and parted ways.

Steel Blue

In a sea of winter white with delicate blue shadow,

under a sky of pink and grey,

the ice sits on water, a steel blue shade of grey.

And in the distance a dashed and steely blue meets the horizon .

I think of your shell frozen in the earth.

Where is all the wealth and health that shell once contained?

It has risen up to skies of steely blue

tinged with pink

and sliver of white moon.

-Yesterday’s poem after a walk

Chansons

Chansons des pauvres

Chansons d’amour

Chanter le coeur

Chansons des pauvres

Chasons d’amour.

Is that you Serge

moving

across the rafters

of my room

coming back for more,

wanting to discuss

the sadness of

poetry or girls ?

Please let’s try

once more

with feeling .

Is that you Serge?

I thought I saw

your daughter

late this afternoon

walking down the

street exiting the doors

of your retreat.

and mausoleum .

Is it time that

we should meet again?

Is that you Serge?

Baudelaire says

we should all

be drunk with

wine

(that stales our breath)

or with poetry

or virtue .

Let’s take our pick.

For Serge Gainsbourg from “Free Verse in Useless Times” by PWChaltas

Empathy for the Pigs

The pigs are screaming.

The smell of excrement and

their snouts are all up in air.

The protesters with placards

have forgotten them

and are not there,

on the corner

that the transport

usually turns at .

( or perhaps

they’ve changed

the times of transport )

G_d save the pigs.

Their snouts are desperately

poking out of the grills

of the transport

sniffing their

last sweet final sniff of air .

The pigs are being

led to slaughter

and there is no one

there

to protest

or to save them,

Just the ones

that haul them

who are bringing home

bacon

to all the frying pans

and grills.

Further down the path

designated UN observers

and the dispassionate

watch disengaged .

G_d save the pigs

There’s no one else

who will,

from these terrible

unholy appetites of theirs.

From “Free Verse in Useless Times” by PWChaltas

Aging Poet Put to Song / Tribute to a Poet in Concert

Look deeper into

your heart.

Look deeper into

your soul.

Look deeper into

the circumstance

of growing old.

Last night at a concert

an aging poet

was put to song.

He ran,

kneeled in singing prayer and

released his life

into the air

and Into thirty thousand ears.

Hearts, minds and

souls consumed

each breath

one million kisses deep,

accompanied

by three muses on his right

and the music of

mandolins, bouzoukis

organs and guitars playing,

all bathed in light.

His eyes were shut tightly

as if dead or blind,

hunched over,

pacing back and forth

and facing down.

Self deprecating,

fedora coming off and on,

his greying head,

he spoke of romance,

with the authority of a satyr,

of love with the pathos of an Orpheus,

and like Endymion

In his sleep.

He spoke of

Love, sex, Christ and G_d,

of growing old,

and of the impossible odds,

shrouded

In the darkness

except for the light

that shone

above his head.

The high priest

of love and verse,

gently moved

from his autumn lyric tower,

into winter with his song

still dripping on his lips,

with beauty in his soul,

swing still left in hips,

perfectly understanding

the circumstance of

growing old.

He sang lamenting youth,

and Inspiring death

from depths ,

with sweet  bold

new breaths,

each

a thousand kisses deep,

and raising angels.

For Leonard Cohen

From ” A Winter Muse 12/21/12″ by PWChaltas

On Love

Each heart is twin

and both love and lust lie within .

Those who keep the faith are few,

and they are those that know

that love endures.

They are those who labour

to keep love new,

as bodies fail,

and beauty fades,

and lust dissolves to dust .

From “Dreams for A Saturday Morning ” by PWChaltas

Pigsty People

Pigsty people
in a pig sty town .
It!s a pigsty all around .
It gets the pigsty people down .
No one wants to live there
but they do.
They just have to.

Others visit just to see
and then just leave
the pig sty town.
Only people
that have to work there stay
and that’s only from  9 to 5 ,
And the the pigsty people
have to live there all the time.
Yes it really it gets them down
but they know
It doesn!t have
to be a pigsty
and that one day
It won’t be a pigsty
anymore.
One day they will
gather up all the garbage
and unnecessary excess
and clean it  up,
and the pigsty will be
a great  and brand new town .

And people will want to be there
And people will live there
and people will want
to stay around.
The pigsty people
aren’t pigsty people at all
you  see.
They never were.
They aren’t pig stye people
in any way.
It’s the gluttons ,
egomaniacs ,and killers ,
the Psychos,
and the sadists
that sometimes rule ,
who truly are the pigsty people
that live in pigsties ,
made all on
and of their own
intent.
From “Picture Book of Poetree” by PWChaltas

It took me a good while reading, randomly studying, and meditating  to come to a resolution. ( Concerted studying has its benefits and limitations too.) G_d’s hand is often found in apparent randomness. The Word took me away, and meditating ,observing , and thinking about the “G-d/Jesus Christ” issue it finally sunk in by osmosis ( faith ) that 2 could be One , 3 could be One and Many could be One. It all reminds me of the old songs “Love will Keep us Together ” or “Have I Told you Lately that I Love you” or a song about “The One” from Van Morrisson’s “Poetic Champions Compose ” Today I’m voicing it for whatever its worth . It’s not so easy to do so and it is a risk to be “liquidly confessing” like this as Margaret Atwood says , but I think I should …

The Bible has been re translated many times . There have been so many changes and slants to accommodate factions and special interests .Go back far enough and you get to the Torah and The Talmud. If you take the “original” texts and go back even further, you arrive at the Dead Sea Scrolls  and The Essenes , voices in the desert who were far from the Temple in Jerusalem and prayed to G_d through the “Angels “. Their bodies and spirits were their temples . Leronard  Cohen ( whose last name infers “priest “) writes in one of his poem /songs: “I forget to prey for the Angels and the Angels forget to pray for me”. Some speculate that Jesus Christ  and the historical Johannan the Immerser, his cousin (John the Baptist ) were Essenes . For more information on this you can read “Rabbi Jesus” by Bruce Chilton. A subsequent book “Rabbi Paul “has been written about the origins of Christianity as well.

P.S. If anyone is wondering about why I’m following my own blog …It’s because a good chunk  of the content in my blog , comes from another & other sources , so I follow the words to get a better sense of what is being said .