London hit again

- London was shaken but not bloodied by bus
and train blasts that clearly echoed those two weeks ago in the choice of
targets but not in their deadliness. Three strikes hit the British capital's
underground rail network and a fourth device went off on a red double-decker
bus, just as on July 7 when more than 50 people died, but this time only one
person was hurt. As anxiety eased, Londoners wondered if luck had spared them
fresh carnage or if they had been victims of copycat attacks just aimed to
scare, but the city police chief was in no doubt. "The intention must have been
to kill," Ian Blair said.

Passengers on at least two of the "Tube" trains told of would-be bombers
fleeing after the small, near-simultaneous lunchtime explosions, which police
said might have been detonators going off but failing to trigger a bomb. Friday
newspapers focused on the fact the perpetrators appeared to have got away. "Four
suicide bombers on the loose," was the tabloid Sun's headline. "I was sitting on
the Tube not paying much attention to anything and I heard a pop, like a really
big balloon had burst, then I saw a little smoke," passenger Kate Reid told the
BBC. "I saw a bag on the floor next to a young man who looked really scared. We
pulled into the Oval station and he just sprinted away as soon as the doors
opened

E.P. Ode Pour L'election De Son Sepulchre

by Ezra Pound

I

For three years, out of key with his time,
He strove to resuscitate the dead art
Of poetry; to maintain "the sublime"
In the old sense. Wrong from the start--

No, hardly, but seeing he had been born
In a half savage country, out of date;
Bent resolutely on wringing lilies from the acorn;
Capaneus; trout for factitious bait;

Idmen gar toi panth, hos eni troie
Caught in the unstopped ear;
Giving the rocks small lee-way
The chopped seas held him, therefore, that year.

His true Penelope was Flaubert,
He fished by obstinate isles;
Observed the elegance of Circe's hair
Rather than the mottoes on sun-dials.

Unaffected by "the march of events,"
He passed from men's memory in l'an trentuniesme
de son eage;the case presents
No adjunct to the Muses' diadem.

II

The age demanded an image
Of its accelerated grimace,
Something for the modern stage
Not, at any rate, an Attic grace;

Not, certainly, the obscure reveries
Of the inward gaze;
Better mendacities
Than the classics in paraphrase!

The "age demanded" chiefly a mould in plaster,
Made with no loss of time,
A prose kinema, not, not assuredly, alabaster
Or the "sculpture" of rhyme.


III

The tea-rose tea-gown, etc.
Supplants the mousseline of Cos,
The pianola "replaces"
Sappho's barbitos.

Christ follows Dionysus,
Phallic and ambrosial
Made way for macerations;
Caliban casts out Ariel.

All things are a flowing
Sage Heracleitus say;
But a tawdry cheapness
Shall outlast our days.

Even the Christian beauty
Defects--after Samothrace;
We see to kalon
Decreed in the market place.

Faun's flesh is not to us,
Nor the saint's vision.
We have the press for wafer;
Franchise for circumcision.

All men, in law, are equals.
Free of Pisistratus,
We choose a knave or an eunuch
To rule over us.

O bright Apollo,
Tin andra, tin heroa, tina theon,
What god, man or hero
Shall I place a tin wreath upon!


IV

These fought in any case,
And some believing,
pro domo, in any case...

Some quick to arm,
some for adventure,
some from fear of weakness,
some from fear of censure,
some for love of slaughter, in imagination,
learning later...
some in fear, learning love of slaughter;

Died some, pro patria,
non "dulce" not "et decor"...
walked eye-deep in hell
believing old men's lies, then unbelieving
came home, home to a lie,
home to many deceits,
home to old lies and new infamy;
usury age-old and age-thick
and liars in public places.

Daring as never before, wastage as never before.
Young blood and high blood,
fair cheeks, and fine bodies;

fortitude as never before

frankness as never before,
disillusions as never told in the old days,
hysterias, trench confessions,
laughter out of dead bellies.


V

There died a myriad,
And of the best, among them,
For an old bitch gone in the teeth,
For a botched civilization,

Charm, smiling at the good mouth,
Quick eyes gone under earth's lid,

For two gross of broken statues,
For a few thousand battered books.

THIS is a Test

THIS is a Test
THIS is a Test
THIS is a Test
THIS is a Test

THE SUN'S TASK:

To me, dear steeds,
The hour is fast approaching.
The world of our deeds, it needs.
Moon from her litter is hurriedly retreating.

My chariot is fit
For another day is writ.
Across the heavens, arching,
Shall once more we be marching.

My bed is full of uncomfortable dreams
While she was abroad, to me, it seems
I lay in the shadows of visions and men
Trying to escape for four score and ten.

That miserable hag has vanished once more,
Once more it is time to even the score.
Destinies game, I hope, is not endless.
For here in the heavens I am eternally friendless.

No Hercules to aide, to lighten my load.
If just for a moment, to soften the blow,
Of eons spent living this unenviable show,
From high in the firmament, I follow this road.

ARLINDO COSTA