Mark Rothko No. 14

                      The Revolution Will Not Be Televised




                           You will not be able to stay home, brother.

                           You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.

                           You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,

                           Skip out for beer during commercials,

                           Because the revolution will not be televised.

                          The revolution will not be televised.

                          The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox

                          In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.

                          The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon

                          blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John

                          Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat

                          hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.

                          The revolution will not be televised.

                     

                           Gil Scott-Heron

  The human being is flesh and consciousness, body and soul; 
his heart is an abyss which can only be filled by that which is godly.

Olivier Messiaen

Osceola Refetoff, Giacometti Sculptures - MOCA - Los Angeles, CA      http://www.ospix.com/

              

                 I Am The People, The Mob

                I AM the people--the mob--the crowd--the mass.

                Do you know that all the great work of the world is

                done through me?

                I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the

                world's food and clothes.

                I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons

                come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And

                then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.

                I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand

                for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me.

                I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted.

                I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and

                makes me work and give up what I have. And I

                forget.

                Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red

                drops for history to remember. Then--I forget.

                When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the

                People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer

                forget who robbed me last year, who played me for

                a fool--then there will be no speaker in all the world

                say the name: "The People," with any fleck of a

                sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.

                The mob--the crowd--the mass--will arrive then.

                 Carl Sandburg

Sotiris Sorongas

                                  Σοφοί δε Προσιόντων

                                             Θεοί μεν γαρ μελλόντων, άνθρωποι δε γιγνομένων,
                                             σοφοί δε προσιόντων αισθάνονται.

                                             Φιλόστρατος, Τα ες τον Τυανέα Aπολλώνιον, VΙΙΙ, 7





                                 Οι άνθρωποι γνωρίζουν τα γινόμενα.
                                 Τα μέλλοντα γνωρίζουν οι θεοί,
                                 πλήρεις και μόνοι κάτοχοι πάντων των φώτων.
                                 Εκ των μελλόντων οι σοφοί τα προσερχόμενα
                                 αντιλαμβάνονται. Η ακοή

                                 αυτών κάποτε εν ώραις σοβαρών σπουδών
                                 ταράττεται. Η μυστική βοή
                                 τούς έρχεται των πλησιαζόντων γεγονότων.
                                 Και την προσέχουν ευλαβείς. Ενώ εις την οδόν
                                 έξω, ουδέν ακούουν οι λαοί.

                                 Κ.Π. Καβάφης

                                (Από τα Ποιήματα 1897-1933, Ίκαρος 1984) 

                            But the Wise Perceive Things about to Happen

                                              “For the gods perceive future things,
                                               ordinary people things in the present, but
                                               the wise perceive things about to happen.”
                               
                                               Philostratos, Life of Apollonios of Tyana, viii, 7.
  






                                Ordinary people know what’s happening now,
                                the gods know future things
                                because they alone are totally enlightened.
                                Of what’s to come the wise perceive
                                things about to happen.

                                Sometimes during moments of intense study
                                their hearing’s troubled: the hidden sound
                                of things approaching reaches them,
                                and they listen reverently, while in the street outside
                                the people hear nothing whatsoever.

                                C. P. Cavafis