In the brightness of noon – Collection Pavlos Kalogeraki, Chios

When They Come Alive

Try to keep them, poet,

those erotic visions of yours,

however few of them there are that can be stilled.

Put them, half-hidden, in your lines.

Try to hold them, poet,

when they come alive in your mind

at night or in the brightness of noon.


                                                     Constantine  Cavafis

                          Translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard