Concerning the Assassination of George W Bush. Cavafy, Clea

Concerning the Assassination of George W Bush,
ex-governor and now usurper of the Presidency of the USA

I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it.. this man is a terrific danger..We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability

To repeat, I hereby counsel, advise, advocate and call for the killing, of George W Bush. For the sake of the world and its peoples.
And while you're at it, torture and kill Pat Robertson.
Imagine the improvement with those two devils dead.
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The Afternoon Sun
This little room, how well I know it!
Now they've rented this and the next door one
As business premises, the whole house
Has been swallowed up by merchants' offices,
By limited companies and shipping agents...

O how familiar it is, this little room!

Once here, by the door, stood a sofa,
And before it a little Turkish carpet,
Exactly here. Then the shelf with the two
Yellow vases, and on the right of them:
No, Wait. Opposite them (how time passes)
The shabby wardrobe and the little mirror.
And here in the middle the table
Where he always used to suit and write,
And round it the three cane chairs.
How many years ... And by the window over there
The bed we made love on so very often.

Somewhere all those old sticks of furniture
Must still be knocking around ...

And beside the window, yes, that bed
The afternoon sun climbed half way up it.
We parted at four o'clock one afternoon,
Just for a week, on just such an afternoon.
I would have never
Believed those seven days could last forever

. Far Away
This fugitive memory ... I should so much
Like to record it, but it's dwindled ...
Hardly a print of it remaining ...
It lies so far back, back in my earliest youth,
Before my gifts had kindled.
A skin made of jasmine-petals on a night ...
An August evening ... But was it August?
I can barely reach it now, barely remember ...
Those eyes, the magnificent eyes ...
Or was it perhaps in September ... in the dog days ...
Irrevocably blue, yes bluer than
A sapphire's mineral gaze

. One of Their Gods
Moving through the market-place of Seleukeia
Towards the hour of dusk there came one,
A tall, rare and perfectly fashioned youth
With the rapt joy of absolute incorruptibility
Written in his glance; and whose dark
Perfumed head of hair uncombed attracted
The curious glance of the passers-by.
They paused to ask each pother who he was,
A Greek of Syria perhaps or some other stranger?
But a few who saw a little deeper drew aside,
Thoughtfully, to follow him with their eyes,
To watch him gliding through the dark arcades,
Through the shadow-light of evening silently
Going towards those quarters of the town
Which only wake at night in shameless orgies
And pitiless debaucheries of flesh and mind.
And those few who knew wondered which of Them he was,
And for what terrible sensualities he hunted
Through the crooked streets of Seleukeia,
A shadow-visitant from those divine and hallowed
Mansions where They dwell.

C P Cavafy (tr L G Durrell 1960)
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On we went, and round two sides of a ... piece of darkness floored with rotten boards. Then suddenly she whispered: 'I think we are there! and pushed open a door upon another piece of impenetrable darkness. But it was a room of some size for the air was cool. One felt the space though one could see nothing whatsoever. We both inhaled deeply.
. 'Yes' she whispered thoughtfully and, groping in her velvet handbag for a box of matches, hesitantly struck one. It was a tall room, so tall that it was roofed by darkness despite the yellow flapping of the match-flame; one huge shattered window faintly reflected starlight. The walls were of verdigris, the plaster peeling everywhere, and their only decoration was the imprint of little blue hands which ran around the four walls in a haphazard pattern. As if a lot of pygmies had gone mad with blue paint and then galloped all over the walls standing on their hands! To the left, a little off centre, reposed a large gloomy divan, floating upon the gloom like a Viking catafalque; it was a twice-chewed relic of some Ottoman calif, riddled with holes. The match went out. 'There it is' she said and putting the box into my hand she left my side. When I lit up again she was sitting beside the divan with her cheek resting upon it, softly stroking it with the palm of her hand. She was completely composed. She stroked it with a calm voluptuous gesture and then crosses her paws on it, reminding me of a lioness sitting astride its lunch. The moment had a kind of weird tension, but it was not reflected on her face. (Human beings are like pipe-organs, I thought. You pull out a stop marked 'Lover' or 'Mother' and the requisite emotions are unleashed - tears or sighs or endearments. Sometimes I try to think of us all as habit-patterns rather than human beings. I mean, wasn't the idea of the individual soul grafted on us by the Greeks in the wild hope that, by sheer beauty, it would 'take' - as we say of vaccination? That we might grow up to the size of the concept and grow the heavenly flame in each of our hearts? *Has* it taken or hasn't it? Who can say? Some of us still have one, but how vestigial it seems. Perhaps. ...)
. 'They have heard us.'
. Somewhere in the darkness there was a thin snarl of voice and the silence became suddenly padded out with the scamper of feet upon rotted woodwork. In the expiring flicker of the match I saw, as if from somewhere very far away, a bar of light - like a distant furnace door opening in heaven. And voices now, the voice of ants! The children came through a sort of hatch or trap-door made of darkness, in their cotton nightgowns, absurdly faded. With rings on their fingers and bells on their toes. She shall have music wherever she goes! One of them carried a waxlight floating in a saucer. They twanged nasally about us, interrogating our needs with blasting frankness - but they were surprised to see Justine sitting beside the Viking catafalque, her head (now smiling) half turned towards them.
. 'I think we should leave' I said in a low voice, for they smelt dreadfully these tiny apparitions, and they showed a disagreeable tendency to twine their skinny arms about my waist as they wheedled and intoned. But Justine turned to one and said: 'Bring the light here, where we can all see.' ASnd when the light was brought she suddenly turned herself, crossed her legs under her, and in the high ringing tone of the street storyteller she intoned: 'Now gather about me, all ye blessed of Allah, and hear the wonders of the story I shall tell you.' The effect was electric; they settled about her like a pattern of dead leaves in a wind, crowding up close together. Some even climbed on to the old divan, chuckling and nudging with delight. And in the same rich triumphant voice, saturated with unshed tears, Justine began again in the voice of the professional story-teller: 'Ah, listen to me, all ye true believers, and I will unfold to you the story of Yuna and Aziz, of their great many-petalled love, and of the mishaps which befell them from the doing of Abu Ali Saraq el-Maza. In those days of the great Califate, when many heads fell and armies marched....'

Clea L G Durrell 1960