Poem by Manolis Anagnostakis
I SPEAK
I speak of the last trumpeting of the defeated soldiers
of the last rags from our festive garments
of our children who sell cigarettes to the passers-by
I speak of the flowers that wilted on the graves and
rot in the rain
of the houses gaping with no windows like toothless
skulls
of girls begging and showing the scars of their breasts
I speak of the shoeless mothers who crawl among the ruins
of the conflagrated cities, the corpses piled in
the streets
the pimps poets who shiver by the front steps
during the night
I speak of the endless nights when the light is dimmed
at dawn
of the loaded trucks and the footsteps on the wet
cobblestones
I speak of the prison yard and of the tear of the moribund
but I speak more of the fishermen
who abandoned their nets and followed his steps
and when he got tired they didn’t rest
and when he betrayed them they didn’t reject him
and when he was glorified they turned their eyes the other way
and their comrades spat at them and crucified them
and serene, they took the road that had no end
and their glance didn’t ever darken nor bowed down
standing and lonely amid the horrible loneliness of the crowd
Manolis Aligizakis 