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Chatty Old Woman

Some encounters are strange, at night, with ghostly

faces, men who hide something behind their prophet’s

beards or they ask you for a match though they don’t

accept a cigarette and thin women who stop you for

a question or they beg you not to carry on insisting

that they have some information or alcoholic children

while they move their hands with difficulty like in

           dreams

therefore struggling from nicotine I rang the bell, a

pair of stupid slippers dragged along the hallway and

an old man opened with a cap in the shape of a sponge,

“what you want?” He asks me, “I?” I said to him. “You

called me, usually this time they all call me”, “who is it?”

An old woman was heard from inside “a crazy man”

the old man said; I pushed  him, I started to search,

prehistoric scene full of dust, “don’t search” he said to me,

“she’s dead”, “then why she talks to me?” I asked, “she was

always chatty like that”, “don’t listen to him” the old woman

yelled  “He’s the dead one since he still hides his money”

“God they’ll drive me crazy”, I thought and raising the axe

I started pounding the wretched sofa which hid the quiet

             part of the wall from me.

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Nakedness

I don’t want to hear anything, he says, look

I shut my ears, I watch your lips, I can’t tell

which word they form. The zero isn’t a circle,

it’s a square like the table. The unheard, truly,

is fleshy and red. My ears turn red because

of what I don’t hear. Now whatever I hear

is red. I will never speak again.

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POEM BY MARIA POLYDOURIS

YOU WON’T RETURN

You won’t return anymore to grace me with

something from the gifts the beautiful life

has graced you: a flower perhaps? The life

that fills your heart and body with such beauty.

You won’t return anymore to take my hands

that froze as if an enemy’s hands?

Joined with yours, calm pair of hands

that need doesn’t come near them any longer.

You won’t return! And the days pass by slowly

and as you go away my familiar fate

comes close to me, alone

for so long with the secret grief.

Don’t you ever think that perhaps, truly,

in sad moment I’ll direct myself

to the fateful end that awaits me

and never to return? 

‘Karyotakis-Polydouri: The Tragic Love Story’ poetry translated by Manolis Aligizakis