Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume II

THE BRIDGE

Indeed, the halves of the hour are strange; especially for

           those who are asleep

and have lost count of time; and more so for those who

are awake and count. The half hours maintain that

vague half that seeks its supplement and are conscious

of being half; and they’re conscious of the vague

other half, in the previous or the after, always in

            the beyond and the outside;

strange, indeed are the half hours — they’re a suspended

perhaps loud 1 ½, 2 ½, 3 1/2 . Perhaps, and a perhaps

that sounds like a slash in the wholeness of time,

a sensitive, metallic pulse; a vibration like the thin blade

of a stiletto thrust in the middle of a bull’s forehead

like that sharp knife which whizzing through the dark

void is nailed in a closed door. 

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