@ 27.055 MHz: Ad Astra; Late At Night, At A Pleasant Manor House In A Town Of Osroini

[after Constantine Cavafy's poem, "In A Town Of

Osroini," trans. by Keeley and Sherrard]


Through a cunningly designed and constructed complex of

flues, mirrors, and glass enclosures embedded in the

lower walls and bottom of the shallow, infloor pool, the

water is kept warm to a consistent temperature, and

adequately illuminated so that, for example, when Remon

(entirely free of any intrusive inhibition imposed upon

him by old prudes, or the minor injuries inflicted upon

him by prejudiced haters), naked except for that pair of

sheer blue stockings that he cherishes, steps into the

shimmering water, his pulsating tumescence is not

deflated by the shock of a chill; nor is his beauty (as

it vivifies those stockings as well as the pool itself)

lost to or even obscured, when partly submerged (the

pool is not at all deep), to our eager and very delighted 

observation.  Once wet, the stockings seem more

translucent; the opacity of the doubled weave at his

heels and toes even more opaque . . . .


J-Called

Author's Notes/Comments: 

I normally do not care for key words to be repeated in rotation, but reading Cavafy's style, in the translation (and others with it) cited above, I feel more of a license to do so.

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