YANNIS RITSOS-POEMS, Selected Books

Η Ελένη/Helen

Θυμάμαι ακόμα, παιδί, στις όχθες του Ευρώτα, πλάι στις ζεστές πικροδάφνες,
τον ήχο από ’να δέντρο που ξεφλουδιζόταν μόνο του· οι φλούδες
πέφτανε μαλακά μες στο νερό, πλέαν σαν τριήρεις, ξεμακραίναν,
κι εγώ περίμενα, σώνει και καλά, μια μαύρη πεταλούδα με πορτοκαλιές ραβδώσεις
να κάτσει σε μια φλούδα, απορημένη που, ενώ μένει ακίνητη, κινείται,
κι αυτό με διασκέδαζε που οι πεταλούδες, αν και έμπειρες του αέρα,
δεν έχουν ιδέα από ταξίδια στο νερό κι από κωπηλασίες. Και ήρθε.

I still remember as a young girl on the banks of Eurotas

next to the sun-warmed oleanders

the sound of a tree peeling its bark by itself The peelings

fell softly in the water floating away like triremes

and I waited one way or another for a black butterfly with

         orange stripes

to sit on a piece of bark amazed that although motionless

         it moved

and it entertained me that butterflies though experts in the air

have no idea about traveling in water or of rowing And so it came

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ΟΙ ΣΚΙΕΣ ΜΑΣ

     Και μέσα στο σπίτι υπήρχε το άλλο εκείνο σπίτι — εκεί που η

μητέρα ήταν ακόμα νέα κι ένα φλάουτο ακουγόταν το βράδυ, όπως

όταν οδηγούν έναν τυφλό.

     Σ’ αυτό το σπίτι είχαμε μείνει κι εμείς για πάντα, ενώ καθώς

ανάβαμε τη λάμπα, το φως της έριχνε μόνο τις σκιές μας στο

πάτωμα εδώ.

OUR SHADOWS

      Within the house was that other house; when mother was

still young and a flute was heard in the evening as if when

they guide a blind man.

      We had also stayed forever in this house and as we lit our

lamp its light projected only our shadows on this floor.

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DECISION

Poor besieged neighbourhood. The cloths on the cloths-line

resemble the ravaged flags of life. The damp colours shine

in the sunshine and the honest patches on the elbows and

the knees on the inside shirts and underwear — like freshly

painted skylights — if you look inside,

you’ll find each of them in its place, strong and enduring —

our neighbourhood travels with its cloths on the cloths-line

in the sunshine like a ship decorated with flags during

the fifteenth of August celebration in Tinos.

Then Alex sat on the stairs of the foreign house

and said: I love our group so much that I feel like crying

and he wiped his shoes with his hand.

And we felt the urge to kiss his dusty hands.

They killed Alex. When we pass that place in the evening

we see our motherland sitting at those same stairs

with its wiped shoes.

We are not afraid anymore. We’ll surely break down the door.

The factory closed. The young girls return from work.

Their lunch tins are carefully wrapped in cloth-napkins.

               As they pass

a smell of forest remains on the road as if spring is three

                steps behind them.

The girls have grown, they’ve become serious. They don’t laugh

                on their way anymore.

Their eyes are large and brotherly.

They kneed our anger and sorrow in their empty troughs. The stars

stir over the roof with a soft stir like sugar in the paper bag.

We’ll have flour day after tomorrow, we say, and sugar and

these girls will kneed the church bread offerings, large, round

and splattered with icing sugar and stamped not with those stamps

with the Byzantine letters but with their own hands, thin and

strong, with the hands that were schooled in the sorrow

of the whole world. 

                                                                     Athens 1941—1942

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XII

                   Bottle in the sea

Three rocks, a few burnt up pines, a lonely chapel

and a bit higher

the same landscape is repeated

three rusted rocks in the shape of a gate

a few black and yellow burnt up pines

and a square little house, buried in whitewash

and still higher, many times over

the same landscape reappears level after level

to the horizon, to the sky at sundown.

Here we moored the ship to splice the broken oars

to drink some water and to sleep.

The sea that embittered us is deep and unexplored

and unfolds a boundless serenity.

Here among the pebbles we found a coin

and we threw the dice for it.

The youngest won it and disappeared.

We sailed away again with our broken oars.

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POEM BY MANOLIS ALIGIZAKIS

DELPHI

Even this solemn remnant

of the ancient temple standing

like an anchorite in meditation

by the slope of the tired hill

even this they shall defile

remember it — I said

half-breed men with wide shoulder-blades

and hierodules with exquisite cheekbones

swaying their provocative buttocks

for the amusement of the winds

and for the sea’s virgin salinity

even this they shall defile

remember it — I said

aimlessly before the innocent statues

they shall desecrate and life the whore

they shall call and with stamina

and unyielding persistence they shall

bury the primeval beauty and after

they exhume the ancestral hatred

and guilt, the pneuma they shall imprison

to be guarded by Herculean arms 

and theirs the wealth

of the valley and my kin’s reward

bloodshed in streets and neighborhoods

where you and I once roamed and played

making plans for exploits and deeds

and you said —

it would have been better if we stayed

obedient to the holy and venerable

half-truths brought to our lands by easterners

at least they promised a gleaming Paradise

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ENCOUNTER

The light has a yellow shade on the facades of the houses. 

The shadow of the leafless trees on the walls and in the street

resemble the shadow of foreign soldiers with machine guns.

              The shadows have changed

the voices have changed — they’ve become  hesitant, like

someone who is trying to find a street number and makes two

steps, looks at the window, where is the doorbell? What

sound would the doorbell make in the hallway with

              the unfamiliar stairs?

When you say tomorrow is as if you want to console someone.

You don’t talk. The rooms feel sleepy in the silence.

The fingertips of silence remain on the shelves, the chairs,

the railings of the bed, like a sick woman who gets up

in the night to get a glass of water. She can’t stand. She leans

on the furniture, she trips on her nighty and falls again

on her bed before she finds the water pitcher.

             We were thirsty.

Loneliness never had a glass of water.

Her trembling fingertips still stay on the dusty surfaces.

Back then we had time. We watered the rose-garden.

             We chit-chatted.

It isn’t the same anymore. Now you count words and colours.

              You can’t establish their weight.

Alice died. She will never be in our company anymore,

as during those afternoons when we dreamed of things.

               Her summer shoes

will remain under her bed like two white dead birds and

her little watch, stopped, on the empty table, like a star

you see through the window shutters of the desolate

              house.

There is no time now. We have to find some new names

              that can stand firmly on their feet

when all memories kneel during the night.

Every evening the neighbourhood covers itself with its blanket

and looks like a kneed bread that has risen. And the old men

sit by the door step, they reminiscent, they smile

and the veins of their thin arms

look like trees ready to bloom.

You’re right. Very good. Lie down for a while.

The nails of the night are black.

The joining eyebrows of the horizon black. It’s cold.

You want me to put my overcoat over your legs?

Your humble shoes are splattered with asbestos.

The leaves of our small lemon tree wilt slowly in

               the garden

as the bus tickets from our past expeditions to the shore

get wilted in the pockets of our summer

               pants.

Now you can’t finish your day like you finish smoking

               your cigarette.

It leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. Someone thinks

that he doesn’t have anything. He unravels the sacks of clouds;

he doesn’t find any star to pin his heart to its place.

The wind always perks up at midnight. The houses buzz.

The posters from last year’s movies flutter on the walls

and all the proclamations from the occupation years. We

have to find something, to say yes to something

                 that tells you no,

to place a monad in front of a line of zeros to become

a thousand or a million or a billion.

And when we look at each other in a sad way

it’s happiness that we look at each other. Go to sleep.

Tomorrow we’ll find some bread, my brother.

We’ll find the light that dries up the road.

Alice dyes our ripped shirts in a piece of sky, to use

when we’ll sew our new flags. The stars grow slowly bigger

like the beard on the face of our beloved friend.

Your face looks so sweet and strong while you sleep —

your chin, so strong, certain.

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II

Oh, sky, you think is enough that we stare at you?

It seems you don’t know us.

Although you repeat to show us your best images

although you insert the muddy bellies of the clouds

although sometimes you look like flour

undressed of its last future

we still need to find you, authentic, amid

your deserted countenances,

we can still find you and teach you what you are

which you don’t know

or have forgotten.

Don’t clench your jaws, oh sky,

don’t get angry, don’t be afraid of us

we won’t harm you more than what you need.

We can even save you.

Stars that stepped over so many strong bodies

and so many corpses

are all welcomed in our hearts.

Their rays, which saw the crust of earth,

are also welcomed.

They had to know this.

We proceed; we shake off all the corners

of the sun that obstruct our path

we step on the neck of each constellation

that tries to stop us;

and these rotten stars

with their empty and frozen shells of bodies

there masks that simulate the light

need a thorough clean up.

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