SUMMER SOLSTICE
2
They all see visions
but no one admits to it;
they keep on going believing they are alone.
The huge rose
was always here
next to you, deep in sleep
yours and unknown.
But only now that your lips touched it
in its innermost petals
you felt the dense weight of the dancer
who falls in the river of time—the terrible splash.
Don’t waste the meaning that this
breath of life has given you.
THE FIRST STEP
One day the young poet Evmenis
complained to Theokritos;
“I have been writing for two years
and I have only composed one idyll.
It is my only completed work.
Alas, I see that the ladder of Poetry
is high, very high; unfortunately
I will never be able to rise
from where I stand at the bottom rung.”
Theokritos said, “These words
are inappropriate and blasphemous.
And even though you are on the first step
you must be proud and happy.
That you have reached this far is not little;
what you have accomplished, is a great glory.
For even this first step
is a step beyond the ordinary.
To have arrived where you stand now
you must be in your own right
a citizen of the city of ideas.
And it is hard and rare
to be naturalized in that city.
In her agora you find Lawmakers
that no arriviste can dupe.
That you have reached this place is not small thing.
You have accomplished a glory.”
POEM BY KOSTAS KRYSTALLIS
GATHERING OF THE GRAPES
excerpt
The grapevine blooms and spreads its vines
over the bulrushes and cypress branches
in riverbeds and in crevasses full of rocks
it spreads its fragrance with every stirring
of the air, as on the hillsides, mountains and the plains
great swarms of bees rouse from their hives
to drink the vine’s ethereal smells
and forage on its pistils full of nectar
and spread the news in buzzing eulogies.
Girls of the village start their day, following
nature’s wisdom to their orchards and their groves,
on mountains and plains, with baskets, joyful
and with songs. The gathering and harvesting begin,
and the countryside awakens to their sweat
and girlish scents and every grapevine row
as if arising from the earth brings forth new chthonian fairies…
REPETITIONS, SECOND SERIES
Themistocles
And they secretly brought his remains to Attica
Thucydides
He, who glorified his land like no other, he, who knew deep
inside that each freedom resulted in another new slavery worse
than the first,
he, with the great plans, the most successful achiever, now
suspicious to all, misunderstood by all, chased by Athenians and
Lacedaemonians too, he couldn’t find refuge not even in Corfu
(who considered him their benefactor). Thus, having no other
recourse, he went and seek his safety at his enemies’ land (and
he knew that this was what the others waited: “here is the proof
of his guilt; what else do we need? His treason is obvious for all
to see”
And, he, stooped there on the side, with the baby of Admetus
in his arms, he fell at his feet so his enemy would take pity
on him.
Then, in the land of Artaxerxes — what bitter welcoming for him,
what speeches and what promises — and gifts and honors from
the barbarians:
Magnesia would be his bread, Lampsacus his wine and Myounta
his appetiser;
but he postponed, he asked for more time with excuses: firstly
to learn Persian, to be able to talk directly to the king with no
third people in between, without translator and the unavoidable
mistakes;
he had in mind to tell all to him, the what, the when, he won’t
hide anything — the secret defence lines, the weak points —
until, finally,
the night of the “important meeting” and while Artaxerxes was
waiting for him anxiously,
wearing his official attire, he got dressed in his Hellenic cloths
which he had brought from his homeland,
by then totally worn out, and he neared serenely to the multi-
engraved table and wrote a short note: “transfer my bones
somewhere to Attica without informing the Athenians” Then
he gulped all the contents of the glass.
There they found him
the same night in his humble cloths, motionless, serene at last.
The Persians mourned him in a big way. His great monument
is still standing in the Agora of Magnesia. As far as the other
is concerned, I mean his short note, we never learned if
his bones ever reached Attica.
A DIFFERENT LOVE
A different love
without the name of the beloved
without the memory or dream of a woman
insatiable, unappeasable love
with bones of our dead comrades
with feverish eyes
with a black wind that spreads its fiery metal
on words, in jails and exile camps.
Thus the words become metal
that you can hardly touch
or mold.
We Continue
Every time he says “I’m finished” he never finishes
Sometimes it is the window with the long flowing curtain
sometimes the fourth leg of the chair sometime the glass
left under the bed next to the shoes
especially the inside part of the fridge – so artificially white –
with the bitten red apple still preserved
showing clearly traces of the same teeth
Experts
Pundits left after doling out
negative expertise
asserting no prescription but
it can’t be done
pundits had their turn
and in the middle of the plaza
we stood alone
holding hands and celebrating
thoughts that nothing can go wrong
nothing is unaccomplished
when you hold onto the stars
when you float in dreams
the achroous when you color
on water when you walk
Manolis Aligizakis 