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VIOLIN FOR THE ONE-ARM MAN

3

However something worse happened: I had to be in

the hallway at regular times; there was a vague accusation

            without any witnesses,

without proofs, almost without a victim;

besides, haven’t I been under uninterrupted surveillance

for years otherwise what would I need all these

            windows?

They were coming in the house each night and that explains

            all the floor creaking

a mysterious murder by the many things that had fallen

            off your hands,

doors you opened hastily or perhaps auntie Eudoxia, who

applied make up at her old age and if you made fun of her

she would go to the side and cry silently, since then I owe

           her all the tears

or that fake coin you threw in the hat of the blind, perhaps

he exchanged it with his whole hand,

or my childhood friend with who each evening we divided

          the world; though I always cheated him

as I waited to be called “it’s my turn” I begged them

although, even here, someone else would take my place;

“there is no skylight” someone said and I calmed him

down “there is one since you’re lost” I said to him;

every so often people opened the door and looked

          at me until blood appeared;

finally they took me “name please”, “assholes, pigs”

I said to them “if I didn’t have a name I wouldn’t be

here”, “and how did you kill your father?”

“I, my father?” But when I started recalling I suddenly

understood how mysterious my past was “they fooled me”

I yelled “someone else lived my life”

           then the next witness came in,

the wretched man, who accused me of debauchery “pity”

I said to him “I was the one who took off my cloths and

covered the gallows so you wouldn’t see it”

and as evening came they brought big candlesticks

           from other eras

since those days I had no corpse to prepare for the night

until finally he appeared, the one who would be

responsible for my defence, as they said; I knew him

but didn’t remember accurately in which life I met him

“are you the distributor” I asked “no I’m the inheritor”

he says, such inexplicable words, perhaps to all who are

          afraid of words

and only after the murder you learn who you are.

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PLEASURE

Old age, serene, beyond joy or sorrow

beyond expectations. It evaluates its time without

impatience which it almost doesn’t consider; it loses

itself before a hornet that dives deep in its buzz,

before a glass with its clear circle floating in the air.

Quiet, endless period after the responsibility and 

the action, silent, sweet period, like a woman in bed,

a woman after an orgasm, who joyously weights

the soft heaviness of man’s genitals in her palm.

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POEM BY JOHN POLEMIS

MOTHERLAND

What is our motherland? Perhaps the plains

and snow-capped mountain peaks?
Is it perhaps the golden sun that shines upon her

or is it night’s innumerable bright stars?

Is it perhaps each of her shallow shores

and all her counties with their villages,

each landscape, every isle that distantly appears

on each one of her many seas?

Is it perhaps her ruined monuments,

the ancient temples crumbling in the sun,

yet decorated by her art’s immortal glory

that echoes everywhere you turn?

All these are our motherland. These and those

and what we have deep in our hearts

which unseen, like a sun ray, shines

and calls inside us: Let us march, my boys! 

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