Long Listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards

https://griffinpoetryprize.com/press/2023-longlist-announcement/

Appearances Can Fool You

     “I’m the key master” he was saying and standing

in the middle of the hall he gesticulated as if he was

opening locked safes; he then listened to the passing

trains, he gesticulated again, he signaled, twenty

years in the asylum even the deranged men laughed

at him; “you’re nothing” they said to him and he cried.

      One evening I went close to him, “I know” I said,

“you’re the key master”; he smiled and said, “no, I do

this for the others; I’m a scientist, a doctor, as my mother

wished me to become.”

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Χρυσόθεμις//Chrysothemis

Έκλαψα κείνη την ημέρα για όλη μου τη ζωή, για τα περήφανα άλογα,
για τα διωγμένα σκυλιά, για τα πουλιά, για τα μερμήγκια,
για το γαϊδούρι του μπαρμπα-Σταμάτη που έβοσκε ήσυχα στον κάμπο,
σ’ ένα κατάξερο κίτρινο χωράφι, — το ’βλεπα απ’ το παράθυρο· —
«γαϊδουράκι μου, γαϊδουράκι μου», φώναζα μέσα μου — και λέοντας «γαϊδουράκι μου»,
εννοούσα τον κόσμο.
Τότε βάλθηκα να κλαίω δυνατότερα
ίσως για να μ’ ακούσει η αδάκρυτη αδελφή μου. Οι υπηρέτριες μαζεύαν απέξω
τα μεγάλα ζεσταμένα χαλιά· — την κόκκινη ζέστα τους
την ένιωσα, μεγάλη, υγιεινή, σ’ όλο το σώμα μου. Τα μάτια μου στεγνώσαν. Ο κόσμος
ήταν ζεστός, χνουδωτός, ολοπόρφυρος — μαζί κι οι πεθαμένοι.

I cried that day, I cried for my whole life, for the proud

horses, the stray dogs, for the birds, the ants, for uncle

Stamatis’ donkey that grazed calmly in the plain, in

a dried up yellow field, I saw it from my window,

my little donkey, my little donkey, I cried inside me

and calling it my little donkey I meant the whole world.

Then I decided to cry louder so that

perhaps my tearless sister could hear me. The servant

girls gathered the big, warm carpets, I felt their red

warmth, strong, healthy over all of my body. My eyes

stopped crying. The world was warm, fluffy, purple

like the dead.

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Poem by Kostis Palamas

TWO EYES

The oil of my lamp burnt out

and I keep vigil. What a night!

No star, only a ghost with two

eyes nailed at the edge of my bed

the world has vanished sucked into

the mouth of the dark Abyss

only two eyes exist over the void

two eyes that fill nothingness

only two eyes that lit the darkness

all are asleep, vanish, disappear

only two awaken eyes gaze at me, they don’t

go to sleep: their eyelids will never close

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Hat

He dons his hat peers outside

at darkness under clouds

laughter staggers like

it craves light from under rock

Look up he said the geese show a path

toward the same direction

keep your hat on and your arms

keep them open a wish may

embrace you or smiling passion

kiss before you run into

the ambush pain

of having a hat on

under lead clouds

and the sun hiding behind

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ΦΑΙΔΡΑ/PHAEDRA

(Απόσπασμα-Excerpt XLΙΙ)

Τί απόμεινες έτσι σαν πετρωμένος σε μια στάση αποδοκιμασίας
κι ίσως με μια έκφραση μυκτηρισμού και σπιλωμένης αγνότητας. Πήγαινε τώρα
να πλύνεις τον ιδρώτα και τη σκόνη των λαμπρών, μοναχικών κυνηγιών σου. Τη λάμπα
δεν την ανάβω. Πήγαινε. Ω, ναι, κι απόψε, όπως πάντα,
πολύ θα το ’θελα να σε οδηγήσω εγώ στο λουτρό, να σε πλύνω
με τα ίδια τα χέρια μου — να σε γνωρίσουν τα χέρια μου. Το κορμί σου
καλά το ξέρω, σαν ποίημα αποστηθισμένο
που διαρκώς το ξεχνώ, — το πιο άγνωστο πράγμα του κόσμου
το πιο ευμετάβλητο κι ασύλληπτο είναι τ’ ανθρώπου σώμα — ποιός μπορεί να το μάθει;

Ακόμη και τ’ αγάλματα, παρότι ασάλευτα, παρότι
τόσες και τόσες φορές ιδωμένα κι αγγιγμένα, νομίζεις πως είναι
ρευστά κι αυτά, κυμαινόμενα· — σου διαφεύγουν. Όταν κλείνεις τα μάτια
δε σου είναι δυνατό να τ’ αναπλάσεις με ακρίβεια, να τ’ ανασυγκροτήσεις. Η Τροφός
χιλιάδες φορές, με κάθε λεπτομέρεια μου ’χει ιστορήσει το κορμί σου. Συχνά, αφηρημένη,
σε σχεδιάζω ολόγυμνον στο πίσω μέρος στα πακέτα των τσιγάρων μου. Ύστερα
γεμίζω το σχέδιο με μικρές μαργαρίτες, για να σε κρύψω,
κι είναι σα να σκεπάζω έναν ωραίο νεκρό με λουλούδια.

How have you become so petrified in your disapproval

and perhaps with an expression of irony and dishonored

innocence.  But go now to clean the sweat and dust off your

fine, lonely hunts. I don’t light the lamp. Go. Oh, yes,

and tonight, as always, I’d love to take you to the bath, to wash you

with my own hands, that my hands become familiar with you.

I know your body well, like a poem I can recite off by heart,

and which I always forget, the most unknown thing of the world,

the most changeable, inconceivable human body — who can

get familiar with it?   

Even the statues, which although motionless have been

seen and touched, you think they’re fluid, undulating,

they escape you. When you close your eyes you can’t

replicate them accurately, you can’t re-establish. The maid

has described, a thousand times, your body in detail. Often,

absentmindedly, I draw your naked likeness on the back

of my cigarette package. Then I fill the rest of the space

with tiny daisies, just to hide you, and it’s as if to cover

a beautiful dead person with flowers.

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The Shape of Fate

Fairy tales painted in our hearts

like a silver schooner offered before the temple

of an empty church, July on the island.

• G.S.

The shape of fate over the birth of a child,

circles of stars and the wind on a dark night of February,

old women with practical medicines climbing creaking stairs

and the dry branches of the grapevine naked in the courtyard.

The shape of a black-kerchiefed fate over a baby’s crib

inexplicable smile and lowered eyes and breast white like milk

and the door that opened and the sea ravaged skipper

throwing his wet hat on top of a black chest.

These faces and these events followed you

as you unraveled the yarn for your nets on the shore

and again when you watched the depth of the waves; as you sailed in double fair wind

on all seas, in all coves they were with you, and they were the hard life and they were the joy.

Now I don’t know how to read further

because they tied you in chains, cause they pierced you with the spear,

cause one night in the forest they separated you from the woman

who looked with her eyes fixated and didn’t know how to speak,

cause they deprived you of light, the pelagos, the bread.

How did we fall, comrade, in the trap of fear?

It wasn’t in your fate, nor in mine these writings

we never bought or sold such things

who is he who orders and kills behind our backs?

Let it be, don’t ask; three red horses on the threshing floor

circle around human bones and have their eyes covered,

let it be, don’t ask, wait; the blood, the blood

will rise one morning like St George the horse rider

to nail the dragon to the soil with his spear

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