Harbor
In the harbor salinity smells
of unfinished voyages
dreamy seagulls
argue for people’s garbage
silent moment hovers between
excited activity of myriad people
going doing yelling living and
your landlocked aching mind
longs for exotic locales
paradisiacal seabirds
abundance of food
no warring over crumbs of life
like in the harbor you always visit
hoping that you might start
an adventure to faraway lands
exquisite female bodies
as in your dreams
that salinity graces
with certain realism
Poem by Kiki Dimoula
YESTERDAY
He came back
dressed in the shade of the undefined.
His eyes a sea-floor without a surface
his lips the incision of mystery
his words a vague deck of cards
that flop to one side or the other
his body an incense
and his hair drenched in youth
his laughter the ruin of souls
he hid the wind inside him
that ripped my paper dreams
my tomorrow cried inside me
long time has gone by
since I received the communion of his loss
in a glass gold-plated by autumn
when I covered his picture with the twilight
and I locked up my songs
for a long time that we’ve forgotten each other.
He came back
a day when we unearthed the parchment of our memory
and signed a godly continuance
since we loved each other.
Yesterday we went our separate ways.
BOY WITH GLASSES
The other boys were playing at the soccer field;
their voices were heard over the roofs of the neighbourhood;
the bounce of the ball was heard too, like a round world
full of fun and audacity.
However, he was constantly reading by the spring window,
inside a square filled with sad quietness
until, at the end he fell asleep, there, on the window sill
not hearing the voices of his school buddies in the afternoon
nor the early fears of his predominance.
His glasses fell on his nose and resembled a small
bicycle leaning on a tree, far away, in a distant,
sunlit countryside, a bicycle of a child that had died.
2.
Grant me, my Lord, a ripped page in every book and
this way I walked bravely like the corner of a house
at dawn or a woman who, with her breasts, pushes
sleep aside or the hands of the blind man conniving
with the fog.
I could, truly, narrate a lot of stories but I’m thinking
to what end since even the most innocent word is
unfortunately a goodbye repeated a thousand times
just before the accident
and the server spat in the coffee so he could double
his wages;
sleep with ravaged musical notes a mix up of dead
keys
children’s letters to God thrown carelessly onto the
ground
and the drunk man walks awkwardly not to step
on them.
In the evening we gathered around the passing rhetor;
the light breeze stirred the fringes of his coat and
ah, perhaps, the secret was hidden in those few words;
the truly five cents romance
while fame was always passing from the other road.
My story was simple, I was born about twelve thousand
years ago
embarrassed as well, while my tea was getting cold on
the other side of earth;
and he always searched persistently in the dark room
“you’ll find it”, I said to him “but what will you do
after that?”
Poem by Katerina Anghelaki Rooke
SOMETHING IS HAPPENING
My legs walk
over the void
my arms embrace emptiness
and my fantasy conspires
with nothingness
what’s happening, what’s happening
and nothing goes ahead?
The haze refuses to become cloud
the moist to become rain
the winter sunrise delays
the reserved melancholy
won’t turn into distress
and the unnamed nightmare
hesitates to mature into a certain fear of death
however here’s a gleaming shadow
I have postponed the coming
of my last day
Εκτελεστικό Απόσπασμα
Επειδή όλοι θά `θελαν να `ξεραν πού ανήκαν, οι Μοίρες
είχαν το ρόλο τους κι όχι μονάχα που κεντούσαν του καθενός
την ιστορία αλλά και που βοηθούσαν την εξωτερίκευση
του αληθινού εαυτού που ενάντια θα στέκονταν
στην Άβυσσο και τότε πήραμε τα όπλα να πολεμήσουμε
κατά της ίδιας μας της αρετής να εξαλείψουμε όλα
τα ολόχρυσα χαρίσματά μας για να σταθούμε ολόγυμνοι
μπροστά στο δίδαγμα που από μέσα μας ξεπήδαγε κι από
τα χείλη του σοφού μας μύστη.
Κι αφού όλοι οι δυστυχισμένοι φοβότανε ανύπαρκτα
φαντάσματα, κατάρες κεντητές και ετικέτες βρώμικες,
εικόνες ζωγραφίσαμε της Κόλασης κι αστραφτερό
το Καθαρτήριο παρουσιάσαμε σ’ άσπρες σελίδες
να τους κρατούν δεσμώτες και μπροστά στο εκτελεστικό
απόσπασμα με μάτια καλυμένα.
Κι αυτό, είπε, ήταν σωστό και δίκαιο.
~Μου αρέσουν όποιοι μοιάζουν με βαριές σταγόνες
που αργοπέφτουν από τα κατάμαυρα σύννεφα
που σκεπάζουν τους ανθρώπους.
Execution Squad
Since everyone always liked to know
where they belonged, the Fates played their role:
not only they embroidered everyone’s history
but they also helped externalize one’s true self
that stood opposite the Abyss and we took
up arms to fight against our virtues, to obliterate
all our golden grace that we would stand naked
before the intuition that sprang up from deep
within us and from the lips of our initiate.
And since the desperate were afraid of in-existent
ghosts, new curses and dirty etiquettes,
we drew images of the Inferno on snow white pages
and we presented the gleaming Purgatory to keep
them eager to learn and blindfolded before
the execution squad.
And this, He said, was good and just.
I like those who resemble heavy drops of rain that
slowly fall from the black clouds which cover men.
NIGHT TRAIN
The train passed by the bricklayer’s shop at midnight;
The houses retained the train’s pulse on their walls and
the window panes;
frightened or surprised they went to sleep
and forgot all about it.
Him, he didn’t sleep all night long. The train had passed
through his veins
with what it brought with what it took. And he waited,
in his mind,
to hear the train’s last whistle coming from the fields,
from behind the trees.
Κλωστές νήματα υφάσματα
όλα τα πουλάω
μόνο το κουρελάκι αίμα που ξηλώθηκε
δεν βγάζω στο παζάρι.
*
Έχει την υπομονή του δέντρου που καίγεται·
Υπάρχει μια ύλη σιωπής εκεί πριν.
*
Κάποτε
μια αστραπή στάθηκε αρκετή.
Άνοιξαν ταυτόχρονα
τις ομπρέλες της σιωπής
κι έζησαν έτσι άβρεχτοι για χρόνια.
*
Ο αέρας σήκωσε την τελευταία πέτρα·
η γη τρύπησε.
*
Σε χρόνους δύο
σε μια εισπνοή έπαιξες
σε μια εκπνοή έχασες
Ξέχασες.
*
Εκεί
που το παιχνίδι με τις κάρτες
μοιάζει απ’ την αρχή χαμένο
αναγγέλλοντας ήδη
τον επόμενο νεκρό.
Θήραμα και θηρευτής κοιτάζονται
οι κόρες των ματιών τους διαστέλλονται
ο φόβος του θηράματος κατοικεί το μάτι του θηρευτή
και το τυφλώνει
ξερός κρότος ακούγεται
καθώς τα βλέφαρά του ανοιγοκλείνουν
το θήραμα αιχμαλωτίζει το θηρευτή.
Γίνονται ένα.
*
Πιο μέσα απ’ το βλέμμα τι;
Φωνή ατίθαση χτύπησε στ’ αυτιά του
σκάλα στριφογυριστή με κουπαστή
φάνηκε στο μυωπικό του μάτι
όλα μικραίνουν…
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ΕΝ ΤΗ ΟΔΩ
Το συμπαθητικό του πρόσωπο, κομάτι ωχρό
τα καστανά του μάτια, σαν κομένα
είκοσι πέντ’ ετών, πλην μοιάζει μάλλον είκοσι
με κάτι καλλιτεχνικό στο ντύσιμο του,
τίποτε χρώμα της κραβάτας, σχήμα του κολλάρου,
ασκόπως περπατεί μες στην οδό
ακόμη σαν υπνωτισμένος απ’ την άνομη ηδονή
από την πολύ άνομη ηδονή που απέκτησε.
IN THE STREET
His likeable face, kind of pale;
his brown eyes, kind of sleepy;
twenty five years old, but he looks more like twenty;
with something artistic in his clothes,
a bit of color in his tie, the shape of his collar—
aimlessly he walks the streets,
as if still hypnotized by the questionable delight,
the carnal delight he has just enjoyed.
FUTILE PREPARATION
As the tempest galloped from the suburbs to the city
clatter of horse-hooves was heard on the cobblestones.
The conspirators
opened their nostrils wide for a great welcome,
for resistance, for a continuous battle. One of them
held a knife, seeking in all this clatter to share the bread,
in equal parts, in true justice. The tempest didn’t come;
only some big raindrops fell on the dusty sidewalk.
Nothing else.
They experienced the humiliation of a futile preparation
and at the end they saw
that they didn’t have anything to share or say
and the man with the knife didn’t exist.
Manolis Aligizakis 