(Excerpt)
Incomparable game flying
you are but don’t you boast
come close, extend your hand,
help, become a labourer.
Match, listen, care and ask
lean down if you want to rise!
Your invincible victory comes
when you say, “firstly you submit!”
Prove that you’re the master
you dominate over your anger
your wish, your soul: become
a labourer, erase all of your
personal; place your engagement
ring among the people;
become one with the innumerable
piles of the great comradely
work. Listen to what the tree
tells you, before they cut it
to craft a boat; my eternal soul
lights inside my new body.
The wheat ears undulate serenely
as if they yearn for the last
unborn treasure: bread.
Air, earth, water, fire, of all
the human mind has tamed
nothing has escaped you and
you still hold in your darkness
the untouched and not humbled
and all the vampires of the abyss
and all the morning stars.
https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/gjgv4ee https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D3LP7NW6
Ο εκδοτικός οίκος Libros Libertad αναλαμβάνει τη μετάφραση Νεο-Ελληνικής ποίησης στα αγγλικά κι έκδοση μέσω του Amazon/Kindle που διαθέτει το βιβλίο σε ψηφιακή μορφή και σε μορφή τυπωμένου βιβλίου στις εξής 14 χώρες: ΗΠΑ, Καναδάς, Βραζιλία, Μεξικό, Αγγλία, Ισπανία, Ιταλία, Γαλλιά, Γερμανία, Ολλανδία, Σουηδία, Πολωνία, Ινδία, Ιαπωνία, Αυστραλία.
Libros Libertad Publishing accepts contemporary Greek Poetry for translation and publishing through Amazon/Kindle who make the book available in 14 countries around the globe: USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, England, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, India, Japan, and Australia.
Poem by Romos Fyliras
Inspiration
Nothing matters in the world but inspiration
alone it sings a lullaby to bitter pain
and rescues us from time’s relentless pace.
To see you, to take the beauties that you have
and melt them in my verse’s flowing stream,
to nourish them, to multiply, one grand idea
sprinkled with inspiration’s myrrh.
https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/vznd2p https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763513
In the Dark
The lamp-lighter passed with his ladder late in the evening,
he lighted the lamps of the island as if he opened holes
in the darkness,
as if he dug deep yellow water wells. In the wells, standing,
drowned, and coppery-green, the lampposts rock back and forth.
A crucifix gleamed on the belltower of Santa Pelagia; a dog
barked behind the stable; a second one in the Customs office.
The restaurant sign dripped blood, the man with his naked chest
held a big red knife; the woman with uncombed hair
was beating the egg whites in a bowl.
https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/w454dzp https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CGX139M6
Miracle
During the second month of the adventure the hour
of our hunger had arrived and we decided to become
an edifice of pious men, innocent supplicants stitched
on the faded wall of ignorance when with a sudden
gleam, as in a rapture, we opened the lid of Aeolus’
bag and let all hell loose: our saints and sins scattered
to the four corners of the galaxy, dumbness and treachery
and moral bankruptcy.
Suddenly I remembered my Uncle Anthony with
his wrinkles and the unblemished smile and it were
as if another rose bloomed in my magical garden.
We evoked our unchained freedom, we broke doors,
fragments of the broken pitcher we gathered, in awe
and reverence we glued a new beginning, the first
miracle, on our faces
and it was good.
https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/y26q9n https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BKHW4B4S
Modigliani, Italy
Day and Night
Like the wind passing through the leaves,
You pass through my mind.
Like a bird sleeping in a tree,
You sleep in my mind.
***
ΜΕΡΑ ΝΥΧΤΑ
Διαπερνάς τη σκέψη μου
όπως ο αγέρας ανάμεσα στα φύλλα
σαν το πουλί που κουρνιάζει στο δέντρο
ξεκουράζεσαι στο νου μου.
Woman
An erupting volcano
A sealed universe
A continuously flowing stream
An unforgiving heaven
A treacherous marsh
A sky thrown open
The term of all longing
The sign for all craving
Palace of secrets
Erupting eternity
Fertile desire
Mystery never solved.
ΓΥΝΑΙΚΑ
Ηφαίστειο που εκρύγνεται
Σφραγίδα της Οικουμένης
Αστέρευτο ρυάκι που κυλά
Παράδεισος που σεν συγχωρεί
Επικίνδυνο μονοπάτι
Ουρανός διάπλατα ανοιχτός.
Σημείο επιθυμίας
Σημάδι πόθου
Παλάτι μυστηρίων
Αιωνειότητα έκρηξη
Γόνιμος ερωτισμός
Μυστήριο αξεδιάλυτο.
Μετάφραση Μανώλη Αλυγιζάκη//translated by Manolis Aligizakis
Cho Byung–hwa, Korea (1921–2003)
From “Selected Poems”
Translation by Kevin O’Rourke – Stanley Barkan
Manolis Aligizakis 