
At the Museum
He slipped inside the steel armory
at the corner of the Museum
to fight perhaps or
just to hide?
Time passed.
The guard clinks his keys.
He locks.
Would at least the statues agree?

At the Museum
He slipped inside the steel armory
at the corner of the Museum
to fight perhaps or
just to hide?
Time passed.
The guard clinks his keys.
He locks.
Would at least the statues agree?

Athens
Cement cubicles
securing, enclosing, keeping
imprisoned worlds
a smoking barbeque
man holding a spoon
stands next to his shadow that
uplifts his stature
in the glare of sun taking him hostage
sparrow hops on the railing
miracle hoping for hopelessness
of forthcoming breeze
man begging for direction in
the cacophony of concrete declaring
values in cubic meters in this
cement city with eons under its skin
captive of the merciless light
while ghosts of trees meditate
on the value of green
and the man cooks his evening meal
with endless fortitude that absolves
all matters in the presence of hunger

Alien Death
When he walked to the upper room of the hospital
he saw the sick man totally covered
with a white starched sheet – perhaps he had
been dead for a while Right above the bed
on the bare wall his pants were hanging
with two legs opened and nailed
like a triangular arch of cloth From there
you could pass straight into the garden of the museum
with replicas of ancient statues with couples
on benches and roasted chickpea sellers

POEM BY HARIS VLAVIANOS
GIFT FROM HEAVEN
What makes you believe that
I can still live in a room
from which you have removed
with certain gusto I may add
one of its four walls?
I agree the view is better —
not that one can see at the far end
Arno and the Ponte Vecchio —
but you think this major renovation
is a good reason for us to return
with our reignited courage
during the first act of the play?
And the four syllable word on the wine bottle
and the meat cooked with prunes
and the candles that supposedly repel the mosquitos
what do they truly mean?
And the young server
with the heavy accent
from which Russian novel
has he suddenly sprang up?
And how the fact that Adorno
as you tell me emphatically
had dined with Greta Garbo
in Los Angeles in 1944
and that his dog, Ali Baba — what a name
urinated onto her book
change anything?
Do you hear the rustle of the leaves
and the voices of the children
who come down our street
on their rollerblades?
Do you know that the message they carry
belongs to a future
you haven’t imagined?
Close your eyes for a while.
Sometimes is better to look at reality
without trying to estimate
in how many minutes the sun will go down
besides right now
the point isn’t
this particular sundown
but the gift it has given us.
Did you say — wasted years?
Don’t turn melancholy.
Is there ever a Paradise
that is not lost
at the end of the dream?

III
Thick worms of the army washrooms
gigantic rats from the septic tanks
they search the sacks for bread all night long
they step over faces,
the eaten face of a cat.
The day roosts on the mountain like a raven
the night falls when the soldiers masturbate
the night patrols and the tail movements.
Under the moonlight
two were going at each other
behind the washrooms.
One of them had a wife and children
and one called Skarvellas put his rotten face
in my sleep to see whether I was singing.

EMPTY NATURE (1993)
For Rodney
on our thirty years together
OESTRUS OF DEATH
They turned the fear of death into the oestrus of their lives
~Andreas Empiricos
I
The spastic woman lost control
and the carriage like an animal bridled by pain
dashed screeching wildly.
Soon after
like sudden nausea
the memory of the real body
came back to her
and the unfortunate woman
restarted going almost joyous
on her small wheels.
Opposite, wrapped in the rosy hues
of the gray time
the house where Thrush was born.
Ah, but first I have to describe
the reef to which I swam:
its shape, the chaki color
reminded me of a backpack
like the ones which eons ago we filled
with the sandwiches of youth.
I kept on closing to the reef
helped by the waters
with their light-blue blouses
that had painted on their blouses cypresses
from the cemetery of the opposite shore.
The beautiful temptation had overtaken me:
to not ever return again
to close the underwater cycle
— neckless of unimaginable value —
around my neck.
As I swam farther out
— I slowly ripped the fabric of the sea —
I kicked drawn loves that surfaced
I kicked them back to lay
down on their weed beds.
Then I questioned myself
if I had truly desired
those acceptable shapes
of the desirable, something
between the subjected body
and the empty talk…
Eros is the only godly glance
that might fall on us
the unbelievers, I would say.
Yet, look, how the sea with the blue
eyelids arouses me now
I’m lasciviously scared
and I float on ditch water
not knowing where it takes me
because I step
the invisible side of lust:
death.
Ο Λέων της Αμφίπολης. Μεγαλοπρεπές μνημείο και σήμα κατατεθέν της περιοχής- Φωτογραφία:ΑΠΕ ΜΠΕ/Σωτήρης Μπαρμπαρούσης.
Στα άδυτα του ταφικού μνημείου του λόφου Καστά στην Αμφιπόλη, οδήγησε η αρχαιολόγος Κατερίνα Περιστέρη τους πολυάριθμους θεατές του 2ου συμποσίου Βιώσιμης Τουριστικής Ανάπτυξης – Δυτικού Παγγαίου.
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YANNIS RITSOS-POEMS, Selected Books, Volume II
ΦΑΙΔΡΑ/PHAEDRA
(Απόσπασμα-Excerpt XXVΙΙ)
Και τα σεντόνια μουσκεμένα από νερά χλιαρά, σπέρμα κι ιδρώτα,
και τα φορέματα, τα εσώρουχα, ριγμένα στο πάτωμα χάμω
και τ’ άλλα μέσα στα σεντούκια ή στις ντουλάπες συσπασμένα να στάζουν, να στάζουν
μικρές σταλαματιές που αμέσως πήζουν, κρυσταλλώνουν, σταλαχτίτες, σταλαγμίτες
σε βαθιά σπήλαια μέσα μας — περίεργα γυάλινα δάση,
γυάλινα αγάλματα πουλιών, ανθρώπων, δέντρων, ζώων,
γυάλινα ερωτικά συμπλέγματα σε μιαν υπόγεια, πυρετική υγρασία.
And the damp bed-sheets, moistened by warmish fluids,
sperm and sweat, the dresses, undergarments, thrown
on the floor and others, contracted in chests, closets, drip,
drip small droplets that thicken, crystalize, stalactites,
stalagmites, in deep caves inside us, strange glass forests,
glass statues of birds, people, trees, animals, erotic glass
clusters in a dark, feverish moist.

Ship
Cruise ship jewel lit like
summer afternoon
we hold hands
our stifled song shakes out in
waves splashing pebbles
You let go
suspending breath, say Listen
can you hear them?
All my heart’s songs
cascade and I look
to open sea ready
to sail like a fully-lit
ship eager for pelagic swells
all exotic ports and their sounds
«Ευρήματα της εκατονταετίας: 1913-2013»
Πρόσθια όψη του αργυρεπίχρυσου σφραγιστικού δακτύλιου, με τη σκηνή του φόνου της Κλυταιμνήστρας από τον Ορέστη. Αρχαιολογικό Μουσείο Ιωαννίνων (αρ. ευρ. ΑΜΙ 4279).
Στις 22 Μαρτίου του 1959 στον Κερασώνα του Νομού Πρέβεζας βρέθηκε τυχαία ένας κιβωτιόσχημος τάφος, πλούσια κτερισμένος. Περιείχε είκοσι περίπου ερυθρόμορφα αγγεία του 4ου αι. π.Χ., τρία αττικά λυχνάρια, τριάντα αιχμές δοράτων, ένα σιδερένιο ξίφος, μία αργυρή περόνη με κωνική κεφαλή διακοσμημένη με φύλλα και έναν αργυρεπίχρυσο σφραγιστικό δακτύλιο με έγγλυφη παράσταση.
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