{"id":62,"date":"2011-04-18T10:05:23","date_gmt":"2011-04-18T10:05:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.onliners.eu\/?page_id=62"},"modified":"2025-07-15T07:30:25","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T07:30:25","slug":"poems-lito-seizani","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/wp.onliners.eu\/?page_id=62","title":{"rendered":"Poems by Lito Seizani"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

MOLYVOS I <\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The prehistoric lion of Kea<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a rock is the lion immured
\nHe looks far away, he feels sleepy
\nThis philosophic relic
\nContemplates eternity<\/p>\n

For years he\u2019s sat in the same place
\nCountless images he must have seen
\nPerhaps he feels sad
\nAs he cannot turn left or right<\/p>\n

ON YOUR ISLAND<\/strong><\/p>\n

A poem by L.Seizani
\ntranslated from the Greek by Therese Sellers<\/p>\n

The stairs creak, the icons fade
\nThe furniture has worn out
\nWhat is left of you crumbles
\nBut what you left still lives
\nBecause you were something greater
\nBeyond what is human, far from what is mortal
\nYou were history and religion
\nAll that is humble, all that is Greek
\nYour shabby little house on Skiathos
\nYour pen and your papers
\nAre only a poor remembrance
\nOf what you really were<\/p>\n

Skiathos, 21st of July 1991.From the collection The prehistoric lion of Kea<\/p>\n

Ravenna 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHoly lust for life
\nsweet Venus of rimmel\u201d
\nSang a guy on the sidewalk
\nIn Ravenna, the beautiful city where I missed
\nThe tomb of the great, inspired Dante
\n\u201cHoly lust for life\u201d
\nHe sang with guitar in hand
\nAnd I gave him a few liras
\nFor a much-loved tune
\nBy a much-loved, famous Francesco
\nThe street musician found the money very little
\nAnd he was right, it was very little
\nFor a godlike song that rose to the sky
\nAnd flew over the roof-tops of byzantine Ravenna
\nPiercing the heart of an artistic and oversensitive Lito
\nWho was ready to abandon family and country
\nAnd sit down there on a street corner
\nTo sing forever with an unknown musician
\nAsking passersby for their change
\nLito Seizani, Feb.2002.<\/p>\n

Note: The street musician was singing Francesco De Gregori\u2019s Rimmel
\nThanks to Therese Sellers for her help with the translation<\/p>\n

Guiding Proust through my childhood<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reading Proust these days, at last
\n(One has to, I suppose, he is a classic)
\nAnd as I\u2019m visiting his childhood
\nHis aunts, his mother, grandmother
\nHis servants, his neighbours
\nHis uncle, the philanderer
\nAs he describes the churches, the old houses
\nThe landscape, the garden at Combray
\nI am revisiting my very own childhood
\nQuite different than his of course
\nBut equally exotic
\nOur childhood is the only place
\nWe can always find again
\nThrough our memories
\nIt\u2019s the one place we will never find again
\nBecause we\u2019re not the same anymore
\nAnd because most of its inhabitants are gone
\n*
\nSo Proust takes me into his crystal ball of the past
\nOr is it a magnifying glass?
\nAnd guides me through his childhood
\nWith every detail, with every shade of joy and sorrow
\nI, too, can taste his savoury madeleines
\nAnd drink hot chocolate in the company of Monsieur Swann
\nWhose intentions I still don\u2019t know
\n\u2018Cause I haven\u2019t come so far in the book
\nI would like to take Proust by the hand
\nAnd guide him through my childhood
\nMake him taste the salt of the sea
\nGo around in a bathing suit for three months in a row
\nAlthough somehow I can\u2019t picture Proust in a bathing suit
\nStill, I\u2019d like to make him feel as I was feeling
\nThose nights under the stars in Greece
\nAnd this one night when we stayed up to wait for the sunrise
\nBut we were looking at the wrong place
\nMe and my friends, stupid children
\nThought the sun would rise from the same place we were used to see it setting
\nThe side of the sea, but it rose from behind the mountains
\nWhat would Proust think seeing me grasping a live octopus my father had caught
\nAnd beating it mercilessly on the rocks until it would become tender and edible?
\nHe would find it gross, I\u2019m sure, such an elegant man
\nBut he would probably enjoy the wet sand under his feet
\nAnd some evenings near the sea singing songs under the moonlight
\nAccompanied by a guitar
\nAnd swimming at night,- he would enjoy this, too, I\u2019m sure
\n*
\nA taste, and a smell, and a piece of music
\nWill exhume memories, good or bad
\nAnd if for Proust it\u2019s the marzipan and the tangerines
\nFor me it\u2019s the lobster and oysters and fish
\nAll kinds of fish
\nFrom the simplest, cheapest, sardine type
\nTo the most expensive ones
\nWhose names in English I don\u2019t know
\nBut their smell and texture is still here
\nAlong with the sense of the sun on the body
\nWhen none of us had heard of SPF or such things
\nAnd we were comparing our tans: the darker the better
\n*
\nGoing to beach tavernas always in the swim suit
\nIt was still wet but soon would get dry
\nThe hair was carrying the salt from the sea
\nA pleasant sense that
\nAlthough not so pleasant on the body
\nAfter a few hours it would feel strange on the skin
\nAnd I didn\u2019t like the dry sand under my feet
\nWhereas walking on pebbles, hard as it might be
\nWas good exercise and felt cleaner
\nBut what beats everything
\nWere the evenings at the beach disco
\nWhere you would dance with somebody you liked
\nAnd the music would bring you closer
\nThen you\u2019d want to leave the other friends
\nGo away, far from the madding crowd of dancers and drinkers
\nJust the two of you go sit on some boat or sea bicycle
\nTurned upside down on the beach
\nAnd talk and kiss in the moonlight
\nThe sky so huge, the stars so bright
\nThe Ursa Major and the Ursa Minor, the Milky Way
\n*
\nChildhood, adolescence, beautified through remembrance
\nRemembrance of things past
\nChildhood turned into a monster through distance
\nOr through examination of details
\nSome sounds are omitted, some feelings are left out
\nSome events are forgotten
\nA tourist in my own childhood
\nA tour guide to my own childhood
\nI\u2019d like to show Marcel Proust these little sea shells
\nYou need a knife to detach from the rock
\nThey are very small but so persistent
\nSo tight are they grasped, almost glued
\nTo their environment
\nI\u2019m a person of habit
\nI cry my heart out for every habit I\u2019ve lost
\nFor every person who dies or simply doesn\u2019t choose to remain
\nIn my circle, in my environment
\nI cry my eyes out for every summer that is gone
\n*
\nDear Proust I wouldn\u2019t dare to you to compare
\nIt would be unheard of, a sacrilege
\nBut if you can teleport me back to time
\nTo your imaginary village of Combray
\nTo your everyday routine, to your pictures
\nSo can I, I think, so can I
\nLS, August 2017 (published at http:\/\/leipglo.com\/2017\/11\/25\/guiding-proust-childhood\/<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The following poem “The ideal bench”<\/strong> has given me inspiration for my 2018 writing project which later became a book. 
\n*
\nThe ideal bench
\nDoesn\u2019t exist
\nIt’s an illusion
\nWhere you can lie down and take a nap
\nInside a park of beautiful trees
\nWhich will offer shade to your face
\nWhere a soft breeze
\nWill make the leaves rustle
\nOnly for you
\nOn it you will doze
\nAnd as you sleep, you will dream
\nThat you found the ideal bench
\nWith no gaps between the boards
\nIt is completely smooth, without slits
\nIt is clean, without any droppings
\nFrom the birds flying over your head
\nOn the ideal bench
\nThere is place for you, too, my love
\nWe can sit here together and gaze
\nWe can philosophise together
\nWhat a wonderful bench
\nClose to the sea, next to the dune grasses
\nWith their particular smell
\nThe wind caresses our hair
\nThe sea breeze makes your nostrils open
\nAnd the water brings the seaweed to your feet
\nNone of this is true
\nIt\u2019s either your memory or your imagination
\nRemembrance of things past, of things desired
\nThe ideal bench is just a metaphor
\nA literary metaphor for happiness
\n*
\nOriginally written in Greek 27.08.13 \/ First published in English 23.02.18 http:\/\/leipglo.com\/2018\/02\/23\/poem-ideal-bench-metaphor\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n

MOLYVOS I<\/strong><\/p>\n

Don’t look at my turquoise beads
\n\t\t\tOn the castle the flag waves in the breeze
\n\t\t\tThe turrets are clearly visible
\n\t\t\tYesterday when the sun was setting
\n\t\t\tA sentry had to strike the flag
\n\t\t\tHis thirsty roving eye
\n\t\t\tLooking about for foreign girls
\n\t\t\tMy holidays finish tomorrow
\n\t\t\tDon’t look at my turquoise beads
\n\t\t\tI’m going back to my old routine
\n\t\t\tI will not see these rocks again
\n\t\t\tRising sharply from the sea
\n\t\t\tNaked they spread their white bodies
\n\t\t\tWhich never get sunburnt
\n\t\t\tI’m sharing this beach
\n\t\t\tWith Norwegians and Swedes
\n\t\t\tAnd other Scandinavians
\n\t\t\tWhatever they feel
\n\t\t\tI’m feeling too
\n\t\t\tPerhaps even something more
\n\t\t\tNo, I don’t need long words
\n\t\t\t“This is my own Greece”
\n\t\t\tI’m not strong enough
\n\t\t\tI don’t want to be exclusive
\n\t\t\tOnly to lie on the sand
\n\t\t\tA body that gets a tan
\n\t\t\tOn the seaweed which gives off a discordant smell
\n\t\t\tI am squandering my love for my country
\n\t\t\tMy holidays finish tomorrow
\n\t\t\tI will remove from my hair
\n\t\t\tMy turquoise beads<\/p>\n

Molyvos (or Methymna): ancient city on the island of Lesbos
\n\t\t\tTranslated by Lionel Scott and Susan Scott<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

ECHO OF HORSESHOES<\/strong><\/p>\n

We’ll go some day together and you’ll see them
\n\t\t\tYou’ll see the pines at Mistra with my eyes
\n\t\t\tYou’ll see the red churches and the palaces
\n\t\t\tI was young when I was told for the first time
\n\t\t\tThat, if you want, you can still hear at Mistra
\n\t\t\tThe echo of the horses’ hooves
\n\t\t\tClimbing powerfully up the cobbles
\n\t\t\tAs they carry the Villehardouin knights
\n\t\t\tBack to join their princesses
\n\t\t\tIn their stately sunlit chambers<\/p>\n

One day I’ll take you and we’ll go to Mistra
\n\t\t\tYou must not die without seeing this marvel
\n\t\t\tIt will be noon and the sun will burn fierce in the sky
\n\t\t\tYou will appreciate this place more in the heat
\n\t\t\tThe sun will polish the history of Mizithras
\n\t\t\tIts Byzantine domes will look the more splendid
\n\t\t\tI’ll take you there one day to see the valley below
\n\t\t\tAnd to hear, if you can, the sound of the horses<\/p>\n

Mistra (formerly Myzithras): Byzantine city,
\n\t\t\tcapital of the Greek imperial dynasty of the Paleologi;
\n\t\t\tin the 13th century under the domination
\n\t\t\tof the French dynasty of the Villehardouins.<\/p>\n

Translated by Lionel Scott and Susan Scott<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

One more Roman spring<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now it’s the time of Rome
\n\t\t\tSpring fragrances spreading from the borgate
\n\t\t\tUp to the gardens of Villa Borghese<\/p>\n

The sun, not loud in its glory here
\n\t\t\tShines reservedly as it  becomes
\n\t\t\tThe nice red colour of the buildings<\/p>\n

Rome -Rome of Pasolini’s, of Moravia’s, my own
\n\t\t\tIn the countryside roads, people are selling artichokes
\n\t\t\tAnd the nearby fields are full of poppies<\/p>\n

Spring must have entered Rome by now
\n\t\t\tOthers must be enjoying it; others, and not I
\n\t\t\tWho suffer of nostalgia here<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

LA SERENISSIMA<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most serene is Venice still
\n\t\t\tQuiet her palaces, her churches
\n\t\t\tHer thronging visitors do not trouble her
\n\t\t\tNor rain nor storm perturb her<\/p>\n

Most serene she endures the centuries
\n\t\t\tHer cupolas glorify God
\n\t\t\tThe doges and their intrigues have vanished
\n\t\t\tTheir benedictions alone have survived time<\/p>\n

Most serene for her people and for strangers
\n\t\t\tFor all who can perceive her eternal grandeur
\n\t\t\tIn the canals, beneath the muddy water
\n\t\t\tBehind the carnival masks<\/p>\n

Most serene for me is Venice
\n\t\t\tMore and more I love her
\n\t\t\tAs time goes by I know her less
\n\t\t\tYet more often do I sing her praises<\/p>\n

I feel the all-powerful magic
\n\t\t\tThe myth exercises upon me
\n\t\t\tAnd the reality of today
\n\t\t\tMost serene, in truth, remains my Venice<\/p>\n

Translated by Lionel Scott and Susan Scott<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

The Spring by Botticelli<\/strong><\/p>\n

What does she want from me?
\n\t\t\tHer face, somewhat ironic
\n\t\t\tPale on cheap reproductions
\n\t\t\tSomewhat coarse on copies
\n\t\t\tStill always Spring
\n\t\t\tAlways by Botticelli<\/p>\n

(from the piece \u00abBeauty and the paintings of Botticelli\u00bb
\n\t\t\tthat you can read here<\/a> )<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Ostrich<\/strong><\/p>\n

God’s animals face problems as well
\n\t\t\tThey fight among themselves, or against heat and hunger<\/p>\n

The bird that looks like a camel
\n\t\t\tPuts its head into the sand<\/p>\n

Often humans have to go through the same torments
\n\t\t\tThey’re hot or cold, they have nothing to eat<\/p>\n

Even myself when I want to clear ugly thoughts from my mind
\n\t\t\tI dream of a hole in the hot sand to hide my head<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Resonance<\/strong><\/p>\n

Even the empty house
\n\t\t\tCan now create verses
\n\t\t\tAn almost human mouth
\n\t\t\tIs through its walls expressed<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Abyssal fish<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are fish which live down in the deep
\n\t\t\tIn dark blackness, in hideous waters
\n\t\t\tThey look hateful and not of this world,
\n\t\t\tTransparent but frightful and fearsome<\/p>\n

The fish with the masks of hate
\n\t\t\tIn dark blackness, in hideous water
\n\t\t\tThese fish which live down in the deep
\n\t\t\tMy wish is not ever to see them<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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