“I Am From…Anthology”

Wheat Ears – Selected Poems

Undivided

With his airy smile still reflecting
bygone glorious days

he stood amid the gravestones

and statuettes resembling
our dead comrades lost in battle

or in a hutment drenched in blood.


Suddenly his eyes dived deep into mine
he let a sigh go as silently as
the statuettes and whispered: only
this graceful smile will stay forever
remember this at the hour of reckoning

only this graceful smile remains
all the rest perish, vanish
like the fragrance of hyacinths
in the wind’s blow
like the love you make to a woman
like the sand through a sieve
or the fingers of your hand

yet this moment will last forever
because only the now can’t be divided

for everything else, they have found
pieces, fractions, and elements.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BKHW4B4S

Entropy

Talking to my Shadow

What is this shadow outside the window

the glance of time, the exiled messenger

vanishes in the flash of a lightning bolt

and unexpectedly returns

a threat or a promise

filled with old melodies, torn-off calendar pages

strange paths, unfamiliar destinations

over which echo of flowing cataracts

distancing footsteps of migratory gods

it stares through me beyond the moon

I won’t stay for too long, it says to me,

neither you

we are guards of a secret

that goes by daily

we have too much to learn even while on the road.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DPCRLJC6

T.S. Eliot – Οι κούφιοι άνθρωποι

Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume IV

Escape of the Invisible

We saw his shadow spread over the door which opened.

The man who left was a stranger to us; no one had seen him

coming in, nor where he sat, what he thought. He hadn’t

said a single word. We only knew him from our comfort.

He talked in a low tone with many pauses especially

(and as if indifferently) the word, “stone” or “string”

without looking toward the spot, he’d have sat, knowing

with sad certainty that he’d leave again, while that white

fluff, breathing on the black hat, would remain on the chair. 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CGX139M6

Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume I

Moonlight Sonata

Φορές-φορές, την ώρα που βραδιάζει, έχω την αίσθηση
πως έξω απ’ τα παράθυρα περνάει ο αρκουδιάρης με τη γριά
βαριά του αρκούδα
με το μαλλί της όλο αγκάθια και τριβόλια
σηκώνοντας σκόνη στο συνοικιακό δρόμο
ένα ερημικό σύννεφο σκόνη που θυμιάζει το σούρουπο
και τα παιδιά έχουν γυρίσει σπίτια τους για το δείπνο και δεν τ’
αφήνουν πια να βγουν έξω
μ’ όλο που πίσω απ’ τους τοίχους μαντεύουν το περπάτημα της 
γριάς αρκούδας –
κι η αρκούδα κουρασμένη πορεύεται μες στη σοφία της μοναξιάς 
της, μην ξέροντας για που και γιατί-
έχει βαρύνει, δεν μπορεί πια να χορεύει στα πισινά της πόδια
δεν μπορεί να φοράει τη δαντελένια σκουφίτσα της
να διασκεδάζει τα παιδιά, τους αργόσχολους, τους απαιτητικούς,
και το μόνο που θέλει είναι να πλαγιάσει στο χώμα
αφήνοντας να την πατάνε στην κοιλιά, παίζοντας έτσι το 
τελευταίο παιχνίδι της,
δείχνοντας την τρομερή της δύναμη για παραίτηση,
την ανυπακοή της στα συμφέροντα των άλλων, στους κρίκους 
των χειλιών της, στην ανάγκη των δοντιών της,
την ανυπακοή της στον πόνο και στη ζωή
με τη σίγουρη συμμαχία του θανάτου – έστω κι ενός αργού 
θανάτου  –
την τελική της ανυπακοή στο θάνατο με τη συνέχεια και τη 
γνώση της ζωής
που ανηφοράει με γνώση και με πράξη πάνω απ τη σκλαβιά της.

Sometimes as evening comes I have the emotion

that outside the windows the bear handler goes by with

his old heavy she-bear

her hair full of thorns and thistles

creating dust on the neighborhood road

a lonely cloud of dust that rises like incense in the sundown

and the children return to their homes for supper and

are not allowed out anymore

although behind the walls they guess the old

bear’s footsteps –

and the tired bear marches in the wisdom of her loneliness

not knowing where or why –

she has grown heavy and she can’t dance on her hind legs

anymore

she can’t put on her lacy bonnet to entertain the children

the loafers or the ones who are hard to please

and the only thing she wants is to lie down on the ground

letting them step on her belly thus playing her

last game

showing her formidable power for resignation

her disobedience to others’ interests the rings in her lips

the needs of her teeth

her disobedience to pain and life

with her certain alliance with death – even a slow death –

her final disobedience to death with the continuance

and knowledge of life

that ascends with wisdom and action above her slavery

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763076

Δημοκρατία του χθες και δημοκρατία του σήμερα

Αφιέρωμα στον εκλιπόντα ποιητή, μεταφραστή και κριτικό Γιώργο Μπλάνα

Twelve Narratives of the Gypsy

There are no women or any children

only old grey-haired, middle-aged men

and lads and they slowly come

stooping and tired as if getting out

of hiding places inside the earth or

from some sunless dungeons.

They stop awhile and tremble

unfamiliar as they are

in the road and under such sun

with their hands over their eyes

and their hands on their foreheads

as if blinded by gleam and fear

and they walk away frightened

by the sunlight and the far-gleaming

sea, by the horizon’s edge and

the sky over and around them

as if in a daylight game.

They seem as if they are born to

stoop over hard-to-read

books and old synaxarions

and over something more precious

than the Arabic topaz and

pearls from Hormuz

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

Tasos Livaditis – Poems, Volume II

Long Listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards

Ambush

      The sun went down behind the army barracks,

beggars searched for some water however all the water

pitchers in Cana were inverted; women cried as they left

in the yellow dusk, I, haunted, shared my wine with

the robbers and pseudo-martyrs on the hill while

the cross was already biting the edge of my coat.

       Who could I love? To whom should I confess? Only

God can say He heard me complaining, I drank all

the bog they threw at me, my dreams became

the paths onto which triumphant carts rode; I plucked

my wings and gave them to the old, all-alone

woman who was buried with the sparrow under

the neighbour’s tree, in an old pencil case full of ash;

remember me, when the time comes.

      Prisoners’ handiworks were drying by the fireplace.

It was autumn, the fields were deserted, and I heard the steps

of informers who stole the hay. Then I noticed the great

gallows where I was to climb, unknown whether I was

to be crowned king or to roll down to the basket

of the beheaded.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763564