How many of us have fallen for ghosts?

Sorry about the lack of updates. I've been having the worst dreams. Really tired right now, but let's look at the last few scheduled posts...

The 12th of June entry, like any mention of 'words caught in mouth' probably has the phantom of Sappho in it:

He seems to me equal to the gods that man
whoever he is who opposite you
sits and listens close
     to your sweet speaking
and lovely laughing — oh it
puts the heart in my chest on wings
for when I look at you, even a moment, no speaking
     is left in me
no: tongue breaks and thin
fire is racing under skin
and in eyes no sight and drumming
     fills ears
and cold sweat holds me and shaking
grips me all, greener than grass
I am and dead — or almost
     I seem to me.
But all is to be dared, because even a person of poverty . . .

(Fragment 31, trans. Anne Carson).

Though that doesn't mean I had it in mind. Maybe the world and the clouds held in in mind. Funnily enough, looking at the post now, "my gut grows sore" reminds me of another poem, also to do with that old Lyric:

Didn’t Sappho say her guts clutched up like this?

Before a face suddenly numinous,

her eyes watered, knees melted. Did she lactate   

again, milk brought down by a girl’s kiss?   

It’s documented torrents are unloosed

by such events as recently produced

not the wish, but the need, to consume, in us,   

one pint of Maalox, one of Kaopectate.

My eyes and groin are permanently swollen,   

I’m alternatingly brilliant and witless

—and sleepless: bed is just a swamp to roll in.   

Although I’d cream my jeans touching your breast,   

sweetheart, it isn’t lust; it’s all the rest

of what I want with you that scares me shitless.

(Marilyn Hacker, '[Didn’t Sappho say her guts clutched up like this?]' in Love, Death and the Changing of the Seasons)

Brilliantly visceral.

Come to think of it, there's a lot of Greek floating around in these few posts. And in my blog in general. It makes me think of a friend I knew a long time ago. Castillia, I think she was called. Back in primary school. I think around when we were eleven she moved to some island on the Mediterranean, near Athens. I don't know her anymore, and even if I managed to get back in touch, would I know her any more?

Oh right, Greek literature. So "The long unmeasured pulse of time moves ever[y] thing" is from Sophocles I think. He's mentioned a few lines later. Or maybe it was Aeschylus. An ancient tragedy writer, at any rate.

As for the image of the stairs, I tried searching by image for it on Google, but couldn't find a direct match. Just a hall of other dark grey and black images.