The Purple Grape
The purple grape,
soaked with a whole summer,
bears more than sweetness in it:
secret sparks
which will burst on your tongue,
which will rise like fire
to your temples, your wrists.
The purple grape’s flesh,
crushed, filtered, fermented,
harbours a truth,
a dark and dense
and undiscovered truth,
a relentless ruler.
Find dreams flipping over
into life, find sun
running through your veins,
find the more
you were made for.
Christina Egan © 2006
Purple Wine
I.
Deep purple and pure is this wine,
the midsummer’s fire condensed,
expanding inside me, immense:
your kiss – you are finally mine.
II.
There’s twenty-one words on the paper,
of wine and a night I forgot:
yet flowers and fruits bore my plot,
your kiss sparkles many years later…
Christina Egan © 2005 (I) / 2020 (II)
Photograph: Christina Egan © 2016.
The Path of Luck
The burnished desk of the leader groaned
under the slap of his sturdy sandal:
he brandished it over the map of Europe,
as if he signed it, large, from the left.
The oil-lamp flickered, the officers frowned
and grinned and raised their cups of spiced wine:
“Don’t forge your luck while it’s hot and supple —
but fan your fate when you will it so!”
The earth would unroll like a scarlet carpet,
lavish her treasures before his feet:
the gold and the purple, sandalwood, snakeskin,
the pearl and the laurel, the wine from volcanoes.
His sandals mounting the snow-white steps,
he saw and saw not the pool of blood.
Christina Egan © 2008
Altae moenia Romae
Rome rose, looked round, and conquered all,
on loot and lies loomed square and tall,
and slowly crumbled towards its fall.
Time’s march defies the highest wall.
Christina Egan © 2008
The first poem was written on the Ides of March and the second soon after. They reveal the dark side of Rome, the shadow of the imperial propaganda that the Empire had brought universal peace. Caesar is still celebrated as the greatest statesman ever; but he got to the top, and lifted Rome to the top, at a very great human cost.
For praise of ancient Rome, go to the narrative poem The City Lit Up about Roman London and the sonnets at The Hallowed City about the Eternal City itself.
The poem above follows the structure of an English sonnet, with three times four lines and then two in the end, with a conclusion or twist.
Illustrations: Roman mosaic, Bardo Museum, Tunis. Photograph: Christina Egan © 2014. — Milestone, Campidoglio, Rome. Photograph by Lalupa. — Roman city wall of London. Photograph by Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz) (Own work) via Wikimedia Commons.
Park in December
Dead leaves everywhere,
thousands of them, outstretched hands,
discarded prayers…
*
The crystal goblet
of the winter sky, brimful
with frosty white wine.
*
On denuded twigs
millions of minute buds
hovering in limbo.
Christina Egan © 2012
purpurne beeren
gleißende wolken
gehäuft und gestaffelt
wispernde rispen
zufriedener pappeln
mannshohe rosen
und silberoliven
letzter lavendel
in hölzernen kübeln
purpurne buchen
mit purpurnem schatten
purpurne beeren
o süßes erwachen
was willst du mehr noch
mit sinnen und streben
schau um dich her doch
hier hier ist das leben
bunt ist der sommer
und golden im sinken
schlank ist das weinglas
mit purpurnem blinken
süß ist das lachen
verborgener vögel
stolz setzt der sommer
die gleißenden segel
Christina Egan © 2016
Old Botanical Garden, Dahlem, Berlin.
Photograph: Christina Egan © 2016.
Der letzte Tropfen
Wein von der Farbe des Blutes, jedoch vom Dufte der Rosen,
Wein von des Abends Kühle, darauf von der Hitze des Herdes…
Halb nur bewußte Gebete murmelnd, vergieß’ ich das Opfer:
Göttern den ersten Tropfen, den letzten dem fernen Geliebten.
Unbekannt sind mir jene, nicht weniger fremd ist mir dieser,
marmornes Bildnis verborgen im Haine heiliger Pinien.
Glatt wie silberne Spiegel und pfeilgerade die Straßen,
welche das mächtige Rom über Sümpfe und Hügel geknüpft hat:
Dennoch führt nicht eine zum Ziel, zum Dache des andern,–
ewig harrt man allein, allein unter schweigenden Sternen.
Christina Egan © 2015
Like every year, I begin this blog with a Roman road…
The poem is written in hexametres, which I find difficult to emulate in English and German.
You can find another story with spilt wine and ancient roads, in the form of an English poem, at Quo vadis?.
Roman mosaic, Bardo Museum, Tunis.
Photograph: Christina Egan © 2014.
traurige ernte
purpurn häufen sich die trauben
äpfel rollen dick und gelb
unter meinen müden augen
neben meinem armen feld
unerwidert bleibt mein lächeln
meine tränen ungezählt
unbedeutend rinnt mein leben
und ich sterbe unvermählt
Christina Egan © 2011
Funkenschlag
Ich habe spät beim Wein gesessen
und in die Nacht hinausgedacht:
Ich werde ohne Erben sterben;
was hat mein Leben ausgemacht?
Ich habe nicht umsonst gelitten,
ich habe nicht umsonst gelacht:
Der Funkenschlag geschliff’ner Worte
hat oft schon Flammensprung entfacht.
Christina Egan © 2009
The first person is dejected in the belief that his or her life has not been fruitful; they feel lonely and poor, not necessarily in material terms. The second person is convinced that he or she has not lived and suffered in vain: they made a difference through their words.
That successful person could be a politician or a novelist, for instance; but it does not matter, because everyone has made a difference to the world and has been irreplaceable. Our heirs are those who inherit our lives, whether in money, property, things or in achievements, inventions, ideas.
Glasperlenlied
Die Stadt ist endlich dunkel, endlich still.
Und in der regenreinen Ruhe quillt
herauf, was unter dem Getümmel lag:
das Teppichmuster unterm Alltagstag.
Die Stunden ziehen bunt an mir vorüber,
verdichten, runden sich: Glasperlenlieder.
Mein Leben ist gering. Ich bin allein.
Doch brennt mein Herz und leuchtet wie der Wein.
Christina Egan © 2011
Minoan beads from Crete, of gold, lapis lazuli and cornelian, at least 3,500 years old.
Photograph © The Trustees of the British Museum.
Gelbes Licht
I.
Du trittst aus dem Beton hervor,
als trätest du aus einer Wand
und durch ein großes goldnes Tor
in blühndes dufterfülltes Land…
Dabei ist’s bloß ein Platz, ein Park
und gelbes Licht und gelbes Laub;
doch wirst du wieder froh und stark
von etwas Wärme auf der Haut.
II.
O milder honiggoldner Wein
im Riesenkelch aus Bergkristall:
Noch fließt das Herbstlicht süß und rein.
O Augenblick! O Sonnenstrahl!
Noch fließt die Kraft, noch fließt der Trost,
solang der Himmel zaghaft blaut.
Man weiß nicht, was das Auge kost:
Ist’s gelbes Licht? Ist’s gelbes Laub?
Christina Egan © 2016
‘Young Slave’ by Michelangelo. Photograph by Jörg Bittner Unna (own work) via Wikimedia Commons.
Roadside café in Morocco in midwinter. Photograph: Christina Egan © 2012.
“Still the autumn light flows, sweet and pure… I felt it in England this afternoon, on top of a high building! Yet the line of the last pleasant sunshine is moving inexorably downwards from the northernmost regions through the temperate ones, its duration is shrinking, and so the space you can catch it at… When the light is lowest, though, it starts rising again, growing again.
By the way: “No matter what happens, the sun will rise in the morning, and America will still be the greatest nation on Earth,” President Barack Obama announced during election night 2016. Not so: the United States have definitely exposed themselves not to be the greatest country on earth; and the sun would be darkened on an occasion like 9/11, or a nuclear bomb anywhere in the world, or a natural disaster due to technologies like fracking.
A Faint Rainbow
(Christmas Card)
A faint rainbow maybe,
draped across a frozen market,
a filigree tree in the foreground,
some leisurely loops of skaters,
cloaked figures arranged like mute music –
that’ll do for a Christmas poem.
Good that my second-hand thoughts
and my second-rate verse
are still better than any in town
and almost as good as mulled wine…
And good that my real-life love
turns every single day into Christmas!
Christina Egan © 2012
These lines were inspired by this round painting :
A Winter Scene with Skaters near a Castle, ca. 1608-09,
by Hendrick Avercamp. — © National Gallery, London
Christina Egan 