The sketch, the ship, the afternoon

  

  It's like him, of course,
  this little pencil portrait.

  Hurriedly sketched, on the ship's deck,
  the afternoon magical,
  the Ionian Sea around us.

  It's like him. But I remember him as       better looking.
  He was almost pathologically sensitive,
  and this highlighted his expression.
  He appears to me better looking
  now that my soul brings him back, out of   Time.

  Out of Time. All these things are very 
  old --
  the sketch, the ship, the afternoon.

                  Les calculs de côté, l'inévitable 

                  descente du ciel et la visite des

                  souvenirs et la séance des rythmes

                  occupent la demeure, la tête et la

                  monde de l'esprit.

                  Once we put our calculations aside,

                  the inevitable descent of the sky

                  and visiting memories and the sé-

                  ance of rhythms occupy the home,

                  the head and the world of the mind.

Constantine Cavafy

On Board Ship

1919

Edmund Keeley &

  Philip Sherrard

  translation

George Savidis

  editor

C.P. Cavafy

Collected Poems

Princeton University Press, 1975©

Arthur Rimbaud

Illuminations

ca 1875

  Jeunesse

  John Ashbery

    translation

W.W. Norton & Co, 2011© 

i    Evgeny Mokhorev

     Double Portrait, revised

     21st C

ii   Jean-Louis Forain

     Arthur Rimbaud

     1872