Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume I
Artist’s Foresight
They dismounted their horses they took off the great winds
and entered their houses got fat and died You luckily
managed to create them naked just with their spurs
on their white ankles Thus these days none will
understand while staring at their great
cenotaph in the sunlight of July that we are all tired
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Twelve Narratives of the Gypsy
(Excerpt)
and from the narrow
shores of Bosporus
green cities and fountains
made of sprouts rose;
blossoms looked like fairies
flowing, descending
in cisterns: jewels, rain full
of red precious stones.
And the sun reflected onto
the Bithynian mountains
to the Vlaherne and
Magnavre palaces
which unobstructedly rose
and gleamed up high
and from the Golden Gates
to the Heptapyrgion
up to the end of stranded
emerald islands
legions of palaces
and armies of monasteries
as if the spells of witches
were cast upon them and
they spread over the domes
and mansions and you shone
oh my soul over all the motionless
crosses and the cypresses.
George Seferis, Collected Poems
On A Ray Of Winter Light
7
The flame is healed by flame
not in the dripping of moments but in a flash, at once;
like the desire that merged with another desire
and they both stayed fixated
or like
the rhythm of music that stays
there at the center, like a statue
motionless.
This breath is not a passing of life
it’s ruled by a thunderbolt.
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Twelve Narratives of the Gypsy
Ο
Δωδεκάλογος του Γύφτου του Κωστή Παλαμά σε μετάφραση μου για πρώτη φορά
στη Β. Αμερική. Το πιο δύσκολο έργο που έχω μεταφράσει ποτέ. Παρ’ όλα
αυτά το αποτέλεσμα είναι υπέροχο όσο και το πρωτότυπο. /// The Twelve
Narratives of the Gypsy, by Kostis Palamas, in my translation for the
first time in N. America; the most difficult translation I’ve ever done.
Yet the end result stands as gracefully and as beautifully as its
original.
Tasos Livaditis – Poems, Volume II
Long Listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards
Adulthood
Insignificant things that just as fast as we notice them
we forget them:
the fragrance of a wet garden, the glance of a passerby,
the cracking voice of a woman behind a window.
We forget all of them; however we’ll remember them
someday and shall feel that we left, there in the middle
of the street, our good luck or a beloved dead person.
But what can I do now? At least let me admit
how old I am.
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Ithaca Series, Poem # 676
Painting by Simone Wilhelms
Warmth
Memory freezes between my fingers,
my eyes unwinking stare,
while the birds migrate to warmer places
in despair.
The victory of winds it is,
not of the heart,
that my cheeks will not blush
from the warmth of memory.
My words follow the birds:
They rest where poetry is.
ΖΕΣΤΑΣΙΑ
Παγώνει η μνήμη ανάμεσα στα δάχτυλα
απελπισμένα πουλιά που μεταναστεύουν
στα θερμά κλίματα.
Νίκη του ανέμου
κι όχι της καρδιάς
τα μάγουλα μου που δεν κοκκινίζουν
απ’ τη θαλπωρή της μνήμης.
Τα πουλιά ακολουθούν οι λέξεις μου
Όλα τα υπόλοιπα την ποίηση.
Μετάφραση Μανώλη Αλυγιζάκη//translated by Manolis Aligizakis
Armenuhi Sisyan, Armenia
Translation Armenuhi Sisyan – Stanley Barkan
Manolis Aligizakis 