Ionia Ionia was lost forever in 1922 Ionia, a spring and a mother. Think of the silent deeds that stand by us when we become conscious of the great pain deeds of man and the mountains take form slowly in such a way grievance isn’t for Greece but for history. How often power hidden in the mystery of life turns its face away from the honest works of man before the decay that confronts and spreads like the frozen and parched gust of winter the longing of the Greek and the Turk’s arrogance fade away. Both alike the sun and the cloud that together sink and dissolve in the night in the great night. In Ionia one can meet us you and I and the black headscarf of the grandmother. One can see the made of oak wood boat of Odysseus the vendetta of stony Mani and Markos Mpotsaris’ Laka-Souli the voice that became Logos or the playful waves accentuated by star matter thickening the columns of the temple. In Ionia man tried to create the face of god and at last he created his own thoughtful face.
THE NIGHT led us sometimes to forgetfulness and other times into feverish roses like the love you give up and then what you want to say stands behind heavier than before and the defeated saw another shadow that walked next to him because such sorrow was too much for just one man. Until at dawn, the beggars, since the ancient days engaged to the corners of the streets, reclaimed their rights and we had to endure our everyday history like a different, wider sky.
Nothing can stop my ardour nor my joy, nor my festival. I want to carry as I started to run victorious to the end who can cut the golden thread of my ardour, my joy, my festival? Not the Turk nor any demon will stop me nor war, not even an earthquake, this the plain that fights for my ardour, joy, and festival. The horses dig the soil and chariots wane as if alive and my people await to crown my festival, my ardour and joy.
Aloof Behind the lectern, the accent develops in words spoken differently echoing funny, unheard before eyes roll around, sighs desperately float mid-air unsure of where to land the excessively long moustache covers facial metamorphosis of foreigner who recites a poem, imagery delightedly soft, caressing the buzz of birds in nearby foliage, autumnal lethargy of sun loitering in gusto as the man shivers in his effort to pronounce words in a way that people will understand a futile battle already lost, never to be won his strong accent annuls any brain he might have, been considered an idiot in most groups, a man with such a different way of talking can not be the one, one wants to listen to, period.
Manolis Aligizakis 