Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume VI

Summary
Those who left early with their glance focused on
the same spot: dead horses, bones, flags, tables, stones,
a lonely tree up on the peak and the immovable oath.
Evening liaisons, pseudonyms on cigarette packages,
the discussion left by the cane fields and the old woman
who yelled: passersby, fools, consumed by secret wounds,
nails, teeth, my little moon, the dream and the chair; take
care of the dead, she said, find a way to live their life. Don’t
fall asleep and forget. History is but a continuance. The man
by the front step reads the incomplete catalogue, the one
with the killed shoulder, who died under the trees. Small
animals gathered by the corner. One lonely boy, enchanted
by the imaginative stars. Ah, the beautiful, I’ll shout, the
brave, ah, the thoughtless. And the old woman under the
stairs, with the big cauldron in the night.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763785

Twelve Narratives of the Gypsy

TALE OF THE TEARLESS
A colourful dream started in the imagination
~ Renan
Once upon a time there was a rich man
who had a son. Father and mother loved him;
he went to school; he learned of everything
that existed in the world


~ (Beginning of a gypsy fairy tale)


A fairy tale occupies
the cave of my soul, a
tale that is tough like
lithos with strong words
like lead; a fairy tale
that crashes me
I don’t know anymore, I
don’t remember where I
heard it first or was it I who
experienced it once upon
a time? Yet whether you’re
a stone, roll down to the cave
of my soul loudly and if
you’re made of lead, melt
in the fire of the gypsy.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D3LP7NW6

Katerina Anghelaki Rooke – Selected Poems

D
since it was a dark night
and only the stars flickered
I thought of an image
beyond humans.
The vase containing the sea was placed
at the edge of the visible
a few dark, undecorated Christmas trees
stood on the sand silently;
heavenly bodies
screamed and shone
in the freedom of lust.
The air smelled of unfamiliar flowers
and none of the lamps revealed
any true or faulty present.
Ah, yes, I said and pushed my inelegant
sole on the atrophied grass, this the way they were
before the stage of the cloud opened
to the first act, with the first actor
playing the first male role;
this was the way before they decided
to strangle the female babies
before Erasmus replaced our diction
before the first complain was heard
about life on this earth
this was the scene of existence
before the play with many acts commenced.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562965

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763521

Medusa

Condemnation
The beggar’s honest hand
extending despair
inexhaustible signalman
momentary begging sigh
sorrowful chirp of a bird
that clipped its wings
A beggar who stooped
unending fortitude
to raid fate’s slap
that on the cheek he felt
as if replacing
his inglorious life
with the unrealized dream
life denied him

https://draft2digital.com/book/3745982#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763769