The City
You said: “I’ll go to another land, to another sea.
I’ll find another city better than this one.
Every effort I make is ill-fated, doomed.
And my heart, like a dead thing, lies buried.
How long will my mind continue to wither like this?
Everywhere I turn my eyes, wherever they happen to fall
I see the black ruins of my life, here
where I’ve squandered, wasted and ruined so many years.”
New lands you will not find, you will not find other seas.
The city will follow you. You will return to the same streets.
You will age in the same neighbourhoods, and in these
same houses, you will turn gray. You will always
arrive in the same city. Don’t even hope to escape it.
There is no ship for you, no road out of town.
As you have wasted your life here, in this small corner,
you wasted it in the whole world.
Manolis Aligizakis 