THE DEAD HOUSE
And the house servants and some old men who were
passing, listened to him as they crowed next to
the colonnade and the servant girls with their aprons
lifted to their eyes, and our mother in the middle
of the front courtyard and the nanny next to her like
a lightning-struck old oak and a bit further
the pedagogue, pale like wax with his thin beard,
a fleshless arm, hanging from the chords of the harp
and the younger daughters, motionless, by the windows
hiding behind their dreams and suspicions, listening
though not understanding, observing the beautiful
stand on the messenger’s knee, his youngish, brown
beard, his black hair curly from the sweat and dust
and a little thorn hooked onto his chiton so that
forests walk and tables are raised on their two legs
like horses and the triremes sail over the trees
in the sundown and the oarsmen stoop and raise
themselves, stoop and raise themselves, stoop and
raise themselves, surely in the rhythm of Eros; and
their oars resemble naked women, hanging from
their hair, writhe and dash as they gleam in the sea
until the froth of the galaxy is outlined behind
the triremes; therefore
the messenger announced the glorious victory
amid the thousands of deaths, not to mention all
the wounded, he finally announced the return
of the king with lots of spoils, flags, carriages full
of slaves and a wound between his eyes, he narrated,
like a clever, exquisite eye through which death was
overseeing, and the master could now see through and
through to the depth of things, landscapes, people,
as if it was a diaphanous glass, and he could easily
read the pulsation of our blood, our mood, our fate,
the gold veins that flow in the rocks and the coal
ribs spread in the subterranean darkness …
Manolis Aligizakis 