Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume VI

Autumnal
The big leaves fall. The sea is angry. The guard sheltered
himself behind the wall so he could light his cigarette.
Whatever was to be said by the cloud, the man, the broken
car was at the mercy of the wind. Hou, houou, my children
under the soil, old women come with dead dogs, with
steel, the sewing machines are asleep inside the empty
houses, the newspaper is caught on the thorns. Ohou,
my children, you walked a lot. I must buy you new shoes.
I brought the most beautiful woman, there in front of the
lamppost. When the lights are turned on, you’ll see her
gathering the black buttons of your coats off the street,
the ones cut off by that wild distant irreversible gesture.

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Life is a Poem

Time accepts me
I experience the attraction of the bodies
around me,
the breath of open windows,
the challenging night trains,
the asphalt warn out by speed,
the raging water,
waterfalls, avalanches,
twists in the scenes.
Time accepts me
holding me tightly in its dry palm
and takes me through ages
as if they were a Friday.
Love is my everyday clothes,
my free bloodstream,
otherwise this body wouldn’t have any breath,
glimpse, thought, rhythm,
molecules – I feel
it weighs me down –
it travels in its dreams
and how far it goes
where no wing has fluttered
and how childishly it strides
in infinity
in the then, in the there, and the will be,
shrouded in a moment of dismay.

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Katerina Anghelaki Rooke – Selected Poems

War Calendar
13th DAY or ON LAND NOW


The heavenly fights descend to the ground
and Death returns to earth the place of its origin.
Bright flashes accompany Him
the only luxury left to the corpses.
Truly, how evil has changed direction!
The actions of Death commenced down
in the mud, in the hooves of the animals
the boots, the bog, then He climbed
to the black clouds and into the innocent souls.
And now in the desert
that I imagine with innumerable
rosy and sandy breasts
that breathe as they near death,
secretive body
with its dark oasis hidden here and there
uncommitted, like spectator of perdition
He became a parachutist to conquer.
Now the progress of bloody flesh
exists from top to bottom.
The sky, a fiery past
that will be forgotten
and good will be established on earth,
it will be buried deep, very deep in memory.

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Introspection

Mu
I evaluated the weights and measures
of the world and found them unjust
wrongly made and unthankful
lacking the whiteness of a home
black stigmata on the wrong side
of the scale, the means used
by the money changer and the banker
measures of the embezzler
against the sunlit noon of June
and the sanctified bed sheets
of the newlyweds and
I said,
one day, new laws will replace them and
firm directions will be put in place
when Hades shows his face and
their means become useless
measures and weighs, unjust and
wrongly made like the echo
of a coin falling on a shiny pan
I evaluated the modern morals,
shiny, glittering and sexy
bodies and consumer goods
that turns youngsters into numbers
and consciousness into a desolate desert and
I found them dark and horrible and
spreading my glance over the horizon
into the unknown future, I saw
destruction and wars, hunger
and ugliness, and I saw the bank accounts
of the few getting richer
and other people’s earnings
becoming meagre and
I said,
The ineffable had other plans for
people on this earth, while
the ego and greediness of the selected
has changed the planet’s route
towards its destruction
I evaluated the minds and hearts of
the populace and thought of filling them
with love, tolerance, pride, and respect
for the neighbourhood thieves and
for the ambitions of the enemy
to balance the imbalance
I saw everywhere

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