Words

As many

before me,

I wrote I love you
in the wet sand

and also drew there

a heart.

As many

before me,

I saw how the waves

washed away the words

and bit-by-bit

the heart.

 

The words were mine,

but whose was

the heart?

 

Petar Tchouhov, Bulgaria 1961-

English translation by the author & Stanley Barkan

 

 

                                                          ΛΕΞΕΙΣ

                                             Τόσες λέξεις στο νου μου

                                              Έγραψα στη νωπή άμμο

                                                        σ’ αγαπώ

                                                     εκεί σχεδίασα

                                                     και μια καρδιά

                                                        Τόσες λέξεις

                                                    κι είδα τα κύματα

                                                  να σβύνουν τις λέξεις

                                                       κι αργά αργά

                                                      και την καρδιά

                                                    οι λέξεις δικές μου

                                                μα τίνος ήταν η καρδιά;

                     Μετάφραση Μανώλη Αλυγιζάκη/translated by Manolis Aligizakis

 

Long Listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards

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And time, always, turns

two people who love each other passionately

into two strangers indifferent to each other

who go to sleep alone, in different beds

and people meet and separate

without taking anything from one another,

because love is the most difficult way to get

           to know someone.

You remember, don’t you? We felt so warm

among the crowd as we walked filling the streets.

Our hands touched, our voices hugged in the songs

a strong light dripped off our flags that were

           up front

and off our dead who we had left behind.

Then finally the charge was successful, we got

in the city shouting and blowing the bridges;

we had meetings, chose revolutionary committees

and we existed among the flashes of fires,

the firings and the wind that was bringing

           the first autumnal leaves.

Because people, comrade, live from the moment

they find their place

in the life of others.

https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/ke4yv6?page=1&pageSize=10

Repetitions

Repetitions

recurring events deaths

still you don’t dare

shake dust from your clothes

slit a new path for

rain the riverbed yearns for

repetitions of promises or vows

recurring battle victories

still you hold the sword

like an unspoken oracle

assume resolve in its edges

solutions in its skill to

truncate the early spring and

erase the word peace from your life

https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/y26q9n?page=1&pageSize=10

Τζί­μης Πα­νού­σης: Φᾶ­τε μά­τια ψά­ρια

Η Μπαλάντα του κυρ’ Μέντιου