Neither This
With these comparisons, he always gets humiliated
by jumping from one subject to its opposite or staying
in the middle (more or less). He never forgives himself
in any position or movement, only from wherever he
returns he carries like a loot, and in such a secret pride,
a sole grain of rice onto which he incised many war
banners, heroes, dead, trees, flags, and that handsome,
skinny deserter who was naked in front of the rifle barrels
endlessly drummed on his empty water canister.
Finalities
Amid the fears and suspicions
with an unsettled mind and frightened eyes,
we melt away, and we plan how to act
to avoid a certain danger
that threatens us so gravely.
And yet we are mistaken, the danger is not in our way.
The messages were false
(we neither heard them nor fully understood them).
Another catastrophe that we never imagined,
sudden, torrential, falls on us,
and unprepared, there is not enough time, it takes us away.
Not Assembled Poems
Following
the existent paths of being
humans rise
into the myth of life to the end
in a new endless voyage
many bodies, souls, and dreams
buried in deep days and nights
the newborn baby cries
doesn’t know its origin
when the time comes to die
it doesn’t know where to
it breathes the melancholy
of the betrayed kiss
a wandering stage show
and the night-sailor up high on the sails
lights up the enigmas of the galaxy
behind him,
not assembled poems the mortal eternities
in the deep-voiced void of love
Madronna’s Summer
Let my kingship
unfold the dream
of tree trunks
negating the crown
Two bodies interlocked
bright reddish trunks
firm in resolution
to uphold the tree-pneuma
benevolent auspice
unison in the hug of the breeze
sliding amid dark leaves
and rustling serenity over
rocky promontory gazing
the water down where
blue and shadows become
one like two madronnas
challenging the painter’s mind
Manolis Aligizakis 