Lampposts III

In the shadow his eyes were asking: can I look

straight in the eyes? Can I look sideways? Can

I jump from above?

                                    Black trucks were passing,

black nights, black children, black mothers. Nicolas

had high fever; how could they take him now while  

he had cold and the wind was blowing?

Dress well, be careful what’s the need for goodbyes,

for emotions now, words written with a blue pen in

              the lining of the hat?

Others have said the same things, others were saying;

it’s always the same; thank God the dead aren’t hungry.

              How can one die?

Very early in the morning with birds chirping among

the cypresses, with just a bit of rosy colour on the window

               panes,

the clear reproach (for who?) He too shared his secrets

with an old curtain or with the lower part of the closet

or with one old ravaged army blanket; many secrets,

such as the holed sock in the left shoe, as when

evening comes and the water carriers often stumble

              on their way,

although the road is flat and familiar to them. A little

further, lined small community restaurants turn on

their lights for the students, longshoremen and small

vendors amid the steam. What have they gained,

              he asked,

them and these? And Maria with the sawdust

in her hair? I pretended I didn’t notice; the opposite

wall was painted yellow as if it had a childish sickness

and him, dead for a while, looking at himself in the big

mirror; his coat that was laid on the back of the chair,

also reflected in the mirror; three buttons were missing;

he must had felt cold. I proposed to sew his buttons

outside of the mirror; the mirror wouldn’t come

to agree; all three buttons were in the fruit basket:

one of them, not matching, red, the other brown,

the third black. They were not matching, how odd,

              my God, how odd.

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Poem by Romos Filyras

THE POET

I had fallen in the depths of the black

hopelessness of the nightmare catalyst

in the heat of summer, the sad and sorrowful

deathly low note of the dreamscape

I had neglected my fate in my slumber

for years. Yet verse and rhythm were never absent

and I had climbed up to where the fount existed

where science said I had it and for this I climbed.

Because I had lost the regular,

the inspirer of dreams, the world’s prophet,

the spontaneous poet who leans on clouds

the great, the holy rhythm interpreter.

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Candlestick

Candlestick almost burnt

drips wax over its base

like stalactites turn moments

to eternities you shape

a well formed stanza

a light thanks to

burnt matches in the drawer

with the white napkins

unfolded occasions

one for you one for her

then as if it were a

napkin from inspired

dovetailed drawer rhyme

you fold neatly and place

where ideal

iamb compels

in the middle of the poem

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Flow

You found the lumberjack’s son under the trees

He wasn’t injured You took off his shoes

You cleaned the ants from his armpits He let you

You leaned your cheek on his belly He let you

You heard behind the cane fields on the opposite

bank that they were throwing their axes in the river

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Gathering

We all gathered in the main plaza of the yellow city,

young, unshaven men, girls with breasts poking through

their blouses, birds hovered over the eternal void as if

to define its borders and the old man stood opposite

the dignitaries. His snow white beard shone, his wide open

arms invited the undesirable and he looked as if he had just

jumped off the family mirror where our dead stood next

to him, all with long, grey beards too. Flower pots and shrubs

of the square remained silent until the old man started

his discourse, the rain recommenced, birds found shelter

in the bushes, dignitaries run to the closest beer parlour

and our old man with the white beard found his comfort

in the arms of the beggar.

I like those who build the house of Übermensch and

who work the fields the livestock, the crops. Thus

they prepare for their end.

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TWO YOUNG MEN TWENTY THREE

TO TWENTY FOUR YEARS OLD

He had been in the café since ten-thirty,

and was expecting him to show up anytime.

Midnight came—and he still waited.

One-thirty in the morning; and the cafe

was almost completely empty.

He got tired of reading newspapers

mechanically. From his three solitary shillings

he only had one left: he waited so long

he spent all the rest on coffees and cognacs.

He had smoked all his cigarettes.

All this waiting exhausted him. Because

he had been alone for hours, he began to

to be overwhelmed by disturbing thoughts

of his morally corrupt life.

But as he saw his friend coming in— at once

the tiredness, the boredom, the thoughts vanished.

His friend brought unexpected news.

He had won sixty pounds gambling.

Their handsome faces, their exquisite youth,

the sensual love they felt for each other

were refreshed, revived, invigorated

by the sixty pounds from the gambling house.

And full of joy and strength, feeling and beauty

they went—not to the homes of their honourable families

(where they were not welcomed anyway):

they went to a well-known to them very special

and friendly house of vice, and asked for a room,

and ordered expensive drinks, and they drank again.

And when the expensive drinks were gone,

and it was almost four in the morning

they gave themselves happily to love.

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The Sentence to Oblivion

             Who would estimate for us the sentence to oblivion?

•                                                                
•                                                                       GEORGE SEFERIS

Stop, passer-by, before the still lake; the curly sea and the tormented ships

the roads that surrounded mountains and birthed stars

everything ends on this immense surface.

Now you may watch the swans calmly

look at them, they are white like a night’s sleep

without touching anywhere, they slide on a thin blade

that raises them slightly over the water.

They are like you, stranger, the still wings and you understand them

while the stone eyes of lions look at you

and the tree’s leaf remains uninscribed in the sky

and the slate pencil pierced the prison wall.

And yet the birds that slaughtered the village girls weren’t other than them

the blood turned the milk red on the street’s flagstones

and their horses noiselessly drew in the troughs

illegible shapes like molten lead.

And the night slowly tightened their leaning necks

that didn’t sing as there was no way to die but beat decapitating bones of people blindly.

And their wings cooled the horror.

And whatever happened had the serenity of what you see before you

they had the same serenity because there wasn’t any soul left in us to contemplate

other than the craving to incise some marks on the stones

that have now touched the bottom below memory.

We are with them as well, far away, very far away, stop passer-by

before the still lake with the unblemished swans

that travel like white rags in your mind

and they wake you up to things you lived but don’t remember.

You don’t even remember reading our writings on the stones

yet you remain ecstatic along with your sheep

that make your body big with their wool

now that you feel in your veins the sound of sacrifice.

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