Ο ΠΟΛΩΝΟΣ

Ancient Polis

The Agora must had been here. Houses all around.

The Theatre stands out on the opposite side, hanging

off the hill. Big white boulders, yellow thorny burnets,

lizards.

During the summers, at noon, with the innumerable

cicadas, the shepherd leans over the dry water well

and screams.

The shadow of the echo rises, leaden-silvery, paints

his face, chest, hands. When he goes back, his dog

gets wild, barks endlessly doesn’t recognize him.

On the whitewashed wall appears the erect shadow

of an invisible horse with a naked rider.

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Tρελαθήκαμε τελείως;

SCULPTOR OF TYANA

As you may have heard, I am not a beginner.

Some good quantity of stone goes through my hands.

And in my home country, Tyana, they know me

well; and here the senators have ordered

a number of statues from me.

Let me show you

some right now. Have a good look at this Rhea;

venerable, full of forbearance, really ancient.

Look closely at Pompey. Marius,

Aemilius Paulus, the African Scipio.

True resemblances, as true as I could make them,

Patroklos (I’ll have to touch him up a bit).

Close to those pieces

of yellowish marble over there, is Caesarion.

And for a while now I have been busy

creating a Poseidon. I carefully study

his horses in particular, how to shape them.

They have to be so light that their bodies,

their legs, show that they don’t touch

the earth, but run over water.

But here is my most beloved creation,

that I worked with such feeling and great care

on a warm summer day,

when my mind ascended to the ideals,

I had a dream of him, this young Hermes.

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Umbrella

You grasp your umbrella close

to your head, keeping stormy

weather at bay, the statue’s head

drenched by a downpour

cascading on its shoulders

on the wide bronze chest

musing that he perspires at the specter

of homeless in plastic bags

covering breathing bodies and

all possessions, denuding sobs

or sighs of pigeons under his plinth

or in branches of plaza elms

and you brace your umbrella close

to your head, staving off stormy

weather with an odd desire

to cover the statue’s genitals

making you blush more intensely

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In the Bedroom

His high black boots in front of the bed. The dogs barked

a little in their garden dog house. The woman placed

the candle in the glass. She hesitated. She looked at

the naked legs of the man on the carpet. His legs

are two men, muscly, twins, with a helmet, with a lute,

with mustaches. If I don’t give birth to a male baby now

he’ll kill me. She turned her eyes away, took the boots,

one in each hand and went out.

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“Lovers-2”, painting by Leonid Afremov, https//afremov.com

《情人2》列奥尼德·阿夫雷莫夫 绘

启 始

无边无际，

冥想中一棵

柏树的梦幻形象，

经历过的

手指和呼吸的

羽毛般的触感，

天国的声音

而飘落你眼里，

落进你的眼泪，

我想发现

这不可思议

和隐晦的

时间的启始。

原 作：克里特岛 马诺里斯·阿利吉萨基斯

英 译：作者自译

汉 译：中 国 周道模 2020-8-7

Initiation

Borderless,
dreamy image
of a cypress in meditation,
feathery touch
of fingers and breaths
experienced,
heavenly sounds

and in your eyes,
in your teardrop,
I want to discover
the inconceivable
and cryptic
initiation of time.

Manolis Aligizakis (Crete)

ΜΥΗΣΗ

Ονειρεμένη εικόνα

ασυνόρευτη του πεύκου

διαλογισμός και αχλή

αφή δαχτύλων και πνοών

που ζουν θεσπέσιους ήχους

κι εγώ στα μάτια σου

ψάχνω να βρω

σε δάκρυ

ασύλληπτη

κι απόκρυφη

τη μύηση του χρόνου.

Translated by the author –

Chinese translation：William Zhou

THE BRIDGE (excerpt)

Our humble needs don’t humiliate us;

on the contrary, they save us; they give us ground

to walk on again, to stand erect, to work, and

their knowledge and approval is our brotherhood,

it’s the beginning of our profound freedom,

it’s that sacred truthfulness,

the first and last truthfulness of man, so much so

that you could cry out of tenderness,

for this confession of yours, for this humiliation,

for this pride with which you were born and will die,

for this work that was caused by these needs of yours

that it will be offered to the needs of others,

to the eternal needs of man, an eternal commitment.

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ALMOND TREES

Dazzling house, red and white,

in which room the almond trees bloomed?
I had spent time in all corners

in the red and in the unfortunate,

the tragic one, the white; my breath

fogged my dreams up on the loft

the sea shivered on your window panes

gardens, secret chrysanthemums in your ecstasy

when I ran, full of blood I the hunter

A large net spread just over my head

misery had teeth made of steel

the sun was planting different orchards

on the walls:

the orchard of the fly, of the kite

the large orchard of love

the orchard of the great fever

in which having my rifle I wandered all day long

with a red ribbon in my mouth

with a red ribbon on my hair

like the unfortunate and miserable corner

like the tragic, white corner on my rifle

I had lived in all corners

in which corner did your almond tree bloom?

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Ian Parks: Selected Poems