Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Good Advice from Sabines

Considering it Carefully
They tell me I ought to eercise to lose weight,
that around 50 it's very dangerous to smoke and be fat,
it's important to keep your figure,
and fight against time and age.

Well-meaning experts and friends who are doctors
recommend diets and systems
for prolonging life for a few more years.

I thank them with all my heart but I have to laugh
at such vain dodges and petty concern.
(Death also laughs at all such things).

The one bit of advice that I consider seriously
is to find a young woman to have in bed
because at this altitude
youth can reach us only by contagion.

Jamie Sabines

And suddenly the behavior of those men at the club makes sense....now does this work in reserve as well? Will those middle aged men suck away the youth and beauty of those young gazelles on their heels? Will they wake up morning, tired and wrinkled? And then the middle aged men filled with the women's vigor will seek out more youth...

8 comments:

Ros said...

Vampires feeding on youth instead of blood.

Anonymous said...

I thought that was how it worked. I see a lot of burnt out girls who are dating older men - the vampyrism explains it all.

Anonymous said...

PS. I'm really liking these poems by Jamie Sabines. Who is s/he? I couldn't find her/him on amazon uk.

John B-R said...

Trophy wives and pool boys ... signs of "success" ... signs of fear ... but who's the vampire? The one trying to find the fountain of youth? Or the one trying to find the fountain of power?

Unknown said...

Both perhaps? I have to say though this Sabines method for health sounds quite...ummm..pleasurable?

John B-R said...

I won't argue a bit with your "quite...ummm..pleasurable" but I don't think health has a thing to do with it ...

John B-R said...

For Jon:

Jaime Sabines was born on March 25, 1926 in Chiapas, Mexico. In 1945, he relocated to Mexico City where he studied Medicine for three years before turning his attention to Philosophy and Literature at the University of Mexico. He wrote eight books of poetry, including Horal (1950), Tarumba (1956), and Maltiempo (1972), for which he received the Xavier Villaurrutia Award. In 1959, Sabines was granted the Chiapas Prize and, in 1983, the National Literature Award. In addition to his literary career, Sabines served as a congressman for Chiapas. Jaime Sabines died in 1999; he remains one of Mexico's most respected poets.

(quoted from Amazon.com's blurb about Tarumba (tr. Philip levine)

Unknown said...

Jon: What John B-R. said...

H introduced him to me. In fact, we read one of his poems at our weddings. H read it in Spanish in me and I read it in English to him.