Twelve Narratives of the Gypsy

(Excerpt)

Audacious, erected witches

naked demagogues, dressed

like beggars, motionless eyes

like statues, eyes without

glances, which were seeking

hard to decipher oracles, had

gone to the secretive Fates;

cloths of the witches fluttered

imperially in the wind.

And they were stricken by wind

and burnt up by the sun’s

conflagration, dwellers

of the desert, ravaged

bodies shuttered by struggles

and struggles, souls untouched

by the lands they had passed

willingly and they were

messengers of a wild spring,

passing black swallows having

curses in their chirps and

contempt in their nests; and

they were all coppery-green

and eternally cursed, loners,

rootless, alien, all connivers

and foreign, embarrassment

of the light, unseen by

daylight while when seen

the day ran to cover its

sunlit face; and they were

gypsies and more gypsies

from afar passing the passes.

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Eduardo Galeano – Ο κοινωνία που πλάσαμε

Neo-Hellene Poets, an Anthology of Modern Greek Poetry

Poem by Kostas Karyotakis

CIVIL SERVANTS

The civil servants melt and wither

in pairs like columns in the office

the city and Death must be

the electricians who replenish them.

They sit on their chairs, they scribble

without reason on innocent white paper

along with this correspondence

we have the honour they affirm

and only honour’s left to them

when they climb up the street

at night eight o’clock as if tuned

they buy chestnuts, think of the law,

the exchange rate and shrug their shoulders

the poor civil servants.

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Savages and Beasts

(Excerpt)

      The young man was listening carefully as he was working next to the old man.

The clothes seemed to be endless, the machines kept on humming their work, the room turned stuffy, and Anton started to feel his sweat crawling down his forehead to his eyebrows and nose from which it could drip onto anything below. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand making sure his sweat wouldn’t fall onto the clothes he was folding. Dylan saw his movement.

      “It gets stuffy in here, especially when all the driers are going and as you see we have very short narrow windows. However, let me crack one open so some fresh air gets in. He left the clothes and standing on a chair he opened half way two windows to the outside. Indeed fresh air started getting in and Anton felt its whiff on his face and arms. He smiled as he continued folding the clothes. Dylan stood next to him and kept up with the task in hand. They worked for a while when Dylan asked.

     “You live with your parents, I suppose?”

     “Yes, on the other side of the river on Columbia Street. My dad works for the trains, he’s a mechanic.”

      “Oh, very nice, and what’s your origin?”

      “Hungary. We emigrated soon after the war.”

      “I see. Your father didn’t like what would become of your country under the Russians. I don’t blame him, to be honest. I wouldn’t like to live under their communism.”

      “Yes, my dad preferred other ways…I do too.”

      “Good for you; here you live in a very rich country with so many opportunities for a young man like yourself…but what else do you have in mind? I don’t believe you plan to work here for the rest of your life…like I have done”

      “No, at some time I might go back to school which my dad wishes too. He’d love to have a lawyer son rather than a school employee.”

      “You father seems to be a very thoughtful man; I’d be proud of such a father.”

      “But I am, Dylan, truly I feel very proud for my father. Especially when I think of what difficulties and hard times he faced just to give me the chance for a better future.”

      “Yes, yes, I’m sure he faced numerous situations and issues, and of course the language problem. Did your dad speak some English when you emigrated here?”

      “He spoke a little but he took up English soon as we came here…and being an educated man it didn’t take him too long to manage his communicating. Then it was the everyday learning, of course, which helped him master the language and although he still speaks with an accent he’s on top of the heap on the subject.”

      “I’m sure, and I know the accent sometimes makes communicating difficult.”

      “Yes, his co-workers, mostly Anglos, always make fun of his accent.”

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Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume IV

THE GATE

Excerpt LI

Oh, our bitter ephemerality, he said, our natural objection,

                beauty

without arguments, alone, orphan, only with blood.

The fine hollow in the neck of a woman’s

rosy nipple tightened before the touch.

Moment, cry, schism; the unquestioned I exist.

Wait, let me get the grass off your hair. Don’t lock

the bath door, I like to hear the water flowing on your body,

flowing with your body in my eyes, flowing in the great

river with the sailboats loaded with oranges. 

             Two oranges

fell in the water; you’re the swimmer who raises them

             with your hands like two suns

sinking vertically inside me. Your straw sandals are

             wet

and dry up steaming in the sunshine that comes in

             from the glass door.

The dice are cast in silence.

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Ηρώ Νικοπούλου, Ο χρόνος που περνά και χάνεται

Μυρτώ Χμιελέφσκι, Δύο ποιήματα

Αλέξης Τραϊνός, Ο μορφασμός του νερού

Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume I

Artist’s Foresight

They dismounted their horses they took off the great winds

and entered their houses got fat and died You luckily

managed to create them naked just with their spurs

on their white ankles Thus these days none will

understand while staring at their great

cenotaph in the sunlight of July that we are all tired

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Twelve Narratives of the Gypsy

(Excerpt)

and from the narrow

shores of Bosporus

green cities and fountains

made of sprouts rose;

blossoms looked like fairies

flowing, descending

in cisterns: jewels, rain full

of red precious stones.

And the sun reflected onto

the Bithynian mountains

to the Vlaherne and

Magnavre palaces

which unobstructedly rose

and gleamed up high

and from the Golden Gates

to the Heptapyrgion

up to the end of stranded

emerald islands

legions of palaces

and armies of monasteries

as if the spells of witches

were cast upon them and

they spread over the domes

and mansions and you shone

oh my soul over all the motionless

crosses and the cypresses.