Sirocco 7 Levanter
For D.I. Antoniou
Things that changed our face
deeper than thought and more so
ours like the blood and more so
sunken in the sweltering heat of noon
behind the masts.
Amid chains and commands
no one remembers.
The other days, the other nights
bodies, pain and lust
the bitterness of human nakedness
in pieces lower than the pepper trees along dusty streets
and all these charms and all these symbols
on the last branch
in the shadow of the big ship
the memory, a shade.
The hands that touched us don’t belong to us, only
deeper, when the roses darken
a rhythm under the mountain’s shadow, crickets,
moistens our silence in the nighty
earning for a pelagic sleep
slipping toward the pelagic sleep.
Under the shadow of the big ship
when the winch whistled
I left tenderness to the money-changers. Pelion, 19 August 1935
Manolis 