I’M THE GARDEN
I’m a garden where flowers once bloomed
filled with the joyous chirps of birds
with secret whispers and soundless kisses
at night love walked around my shadows.
I’m a garden stuck in the same place
for many years in vain waiting for a return
and instead among the flowers I’ve been buried
in the thorns my nightingales have been silenced
and I’ve been choked by the snakes
Picture by Germain Droogenbroodt
Wait for Me
Wait for me, Time, you’re galloping too fast.
Wait for me in the pages of this endless pain of biography, in that shop of rare books, in the waters of the wild heart.
Wait for my arrival in my magisterial disguise.
Place those blindfolds back over your eyes, re-open them in that void grander than life, go re-read Rumi, that wise, far-seeing ant,
let him revolve your thoughts on a wheel of fortune, let his beliefs get lost among your own.
Wait for me, so you can comprehend in my utter silence. Since the days of childhood, there is in me
an eternal desire to have never had two hearts.
SULTANCATTO, Turkey/US
Περίμενε με, Χρόνε, τρέχεις πολύ
στις σελίδες πόνου της βιογραφίας μου
στο μαγαζί σπανίων βιβλίων, στα νερά ατίθασης καρδιάς.
Περίμενε με να εμφανιστώ με τη μαγευτική μου φορεσιά.
Δέσε τα μάτια σου, μη βλέπεις, λύσε τα, κοίταξε
το μεγαλειώδες αυτό κενό, διάβασε Ρούμι, εκείνο το σοφό
μακριά που ατενίζει μυρμηγκάκι, άστο να οδηγήσει το μυαλό σου στης τύχης τον τροχό, κι άφησε τα πιστεύω του
να μπερδευτούν με τα δικά σου.
Περίμενε με απ’ την απόλυτη σιωπή μου να με καταλάβεις
από τα παιδικά μου ήθελα δύο καρδιές να είχα
αν γινόταν.
Μετάφραση Μανώλη Αλυγιζάκη//translation by Manolis Aligizakis
SULTANCATTO, Turkey/US
Whistle
Whistle of the train
or the white ship
utterings of injured crow
while you stay behind
thinking of your pending voyage
to faraway countries
while gazing at twilight stars
this lonely July sky
smoldering without her advice
company of owl’s grunt,
two crickets, one red
one white trying to couple
blend, ruddy apparition
pink melodrama
Needed Shade
The whitewash, the paper, the marble, blinding
brilliance in the sunshine; the pure white is horror.
We fill the walls with names, Iolaus, Patroclus,
Antilochus , while in the ancient nakedness the cicadas
scream “A shade, a shade” the harvester yells down in
the grapevine field, “A shade” his echo answers from
the standing boulders.
A shade to cool the eye — not to hide in it — that
minimal shade with the two ends, the shade under
the breasts of the headless statue.
Poem by Odysseus Elytis
AXION ESTI — THE PASSION
B
They gave me the language of the Hellenes;
a humble house on the shores of Homer.
My only concern my language on the shores of Homer.
Two-branded breams there and perches
wind blasted verbs
green currents mixed with the azure
which I saw aflame in my viscera
sponges, jellyfish
with the first words of the Sirens
rosy shells with the first black shivers.
My only concern my language with the first black shivers.
Pomegranates there, quinces
gods with dark complexion, uncles and cousins
pouring olive oil in the huge storage jars
and fragrance from the ravine sweet smelling
osier and bulrush
broom and ginger root
with the first chirpings of the finches,
sweet psalmodies with the very first Glory to You.
My only concern my language, with the very first Glory to You.
Laurels there and palm branches
censer and incense burning
blessing the sabers and the muzzleloaders.
On the ground spread with vine leaves
smell of burnt meat, eggs cracking
and Christ is Risen
with the first firings of the Hellenes.
Secret loves with the first words of the Hymn.
My only concern my language, with the first words of the Hymn.
Startle
They walked slowly, gazing at their worn out shoes.
The light had a joyous, childish insolence —
it didn’t hide any of the deficiencies. They stopped
outside the flower shops. With a sense of conspiracy
they breathed deeply the thick aroma of the flowers.
Then they sped up, turned the corner of the garden,
came out of the shade of the trees. Agamemnon’s
big dog appeared in front of them; it showed them
his long, snow white, shining teeth.
Eight o’ Clock
Eight o’ clock
a vacant chair
stars half dimmed
your insistence in filling
the void with hope persists
brightly lit vessel divides bay
your unbearable insistence
as the hour shifts to anxiety
when fragrance of sea
fills your nostrils, your assertion
in filling the sensual void with
spent dreams and myths
long-gone, unbearable
as the first cricket arrives
stroking the comb of spring
Manolis Aligizakis 