Στην αυταπάτη και την ελπίδα ανάμεσα
κενό σημείο
Ασύνδετα νους και θυμικό
Ακυβέρνητα πλοιάρια
Απογοητεύσεις στη σειρά
ρευστότητα
αβεβαιότητα- λεν- η νέα κανονικότητα
Θιασώτες παράλογου τσίρκου
γαϊτανάκι τρελών συγκυριών
μασκαράδες στο καρναβάλι του τρόμου
Κι εμείς που νομίσαμε στην πορεία μας πως ήμαστε
πρόσκαιρα χαμένοι γυρνάμε
Ώσπου συνέλθουμε από του ονείρου
την οδυνηρή πραγματικότητα
και να ’μαστε πάλι μαζί.
Poem by Romos Filyras
THE POET
I had fallen in the depths of the black
hopelessness of the nightmare catalyst
in the heat of summer, the sad and sorrowful
deathly low note of the dreamscape
I had neglected my fate in my slumber
for years. Yet verse and rhythm were never absent
and I had climbed up to where the fount existed
where science said I had it and for this I climbed.
Because I had lost the regular,
the inspirer of dreams, the world’s prophet,
the spontaneous poet who leans on clouds
the great, the holy rhythm interpreter.
Candlestick
Candlestick almost burnt
drips wax over its base
like stalactites turn moments
to eternities you shape
a well formed stanza
a light thanks to
burnt matches in the drawer
with the white napkins
unfolded occasions
one for you one for her
then as if it were a
napkin from inspired
dovetailed drawer rhyme
you fold neatly and place
where ideal
iamb compels
in the middle of the poem
Η ποίηση μπορεί να πραγματωθεί σαν αυθεντική χειρονομία μέσα στην καθημερινή ζωή και να χλευάσει τις κανονικότητες δημιουργώντας μια παράδοξη προοπτική… Και τότε οι κοινότοπες πράξεις μπαίνουν κάτω από μια σοβαρή αμφισβήτηση.
Όσοι συγχέουν την ποίηση μ’ ένα λογοτεχνικό είδος και μόνο είναι εν μέρει δικαιολογημένοι. Θα λέγαμε όμως, πως μοιάζει σα να μπορεί να δει κάποιος στην ενασχόληση με το πολιτικό μόνο τη καθεστωτική πλευρά του, δηλ. άσκηση εξουσίας ή/και επιδίωξή αγνοώντας ή μπερδεύοντας την πολιτική συνείδηση και αντίσταση. Δεν είναι περίεργο όταν ακόμα και την ασυμβατότητα της ποίησης με τη λογική και το συντακτικό της γραμματικής προσπαθούν να κρατήσουν, διαφημίζοντας ή διδάσκοντας, στα επίπεδα μιας τακτοποιημένης γλώσσας καλλωπισμού. Δεν είναι περίεργο όταν αναλογιζόμαστε τους διαχωρισμούς που έχει καταφέρει το εμπόριο κουλτούρας. Υπάρχουν, παρ’ όλα αυτά, εδώ όπως και σε κάθε τέχνη κάποια θραύσματα αυθεντικής έκφρασης, ανεξάρτητα σε ποιο μορφικό ρεύμα ή πρωτοπορία ανήκουν (το ενδιαφέρον των πρωτοποριών συνίσταται…
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Flow
You found the lumberjack’s son under the trees
He wasn’t injured You took off his shoes
You cleaned the ants from his armpits He let you
You leaned your cheek on his belly He let you
You heard behind the cane fields on the opposite
bank that they were throwing their axes in the river
Gathering
We all gathered in the main plaza of the yellow city,
young, unshaven men, girls with breasts poking through
their blouses, birds hovered over the eternal void as if
to define its borders and the old man stood opposite
the dignitaries. His snow white beard shone, his wide open
arms invited the undesirable and he looked as if he had just
jumped off the family mirror where our dead stood next
to him, all with long, grey beards too. Flower pots and shrubs
of the square remained silent until the old man started
his discourse, the rain recommenced, birds found shelter
in the bushes, dignitaries run to the closest beer parlour
and our old man with the white beard found his comfort
in the arms of the beggar.
I like those who build the house of Übermensch and
who work the fields the livestock, the crops. Thus
they prepare for their end.
Στην αρχική φωτογραφία απεικονίζεται ο ναός της Ήρας στον Σελινούντα της Σικελίας. Οικοδομήθηκε τον 6ο αιώνα π.Χ. πάνω σε ένα αρχαιότερο κτίριο, σε έναν λόφο της Ακρόπολης της πόλης. Οι κάτοικοι του Σελινούντα έχτισαν 7 ακόμη ναούς.
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TWO YOUNG MEN TWENTY THREE
TO TWENTY FOUR YEARS OLD
He had been in the café since ten-thirty,
and was expecting him to show up anytime.
Midnight came—and he still waited.
One-thirty in the morning; and the cafe
was almost completely empty.
He got tired of reading newspapers
mechanically. From his three solitary shillings
he only had one left: he waited so long
he spent all the rest on coffees and cognacs.
He had smoked all his cigarettes.
All this waiting exhausted him. Because
he had been alone for hours, he began to
to be overwhelmed by disturbing thoughts
of his morally corrupt life.
But as he saw his friend coming in— at once
the tiredness, the boredom, the thoughts vanished.
His friend brought unexpected news.
He had won sixty pounds gambling.
Their handsome faces, their exquisite youth,
the sensual love they felt for each other
were refreshed, revived, invigorated
by the sixty pounds from the gambling house.
And full of joy and strength, feeling and beauty
they went—not to the homes of their honourable families
(where they were not welcomed anyway):
they went to a well-known to them very special
and friendly house of vice, and asked for a room,
and ordered expensive drinks, and they drank again.
And when the expensive drinks were gone,
and it was almost four in the morning
they gave themselves happily to love.
The Sentence to Oblivion
Who would estimate for us the sentence to oblivion?
Stop, passer-by, before the still lake; the curly sea and the tormented ships
the roads that surrounded mountains and birthed stars
everything ends on this immense surface.
Now you may watch the swans calmly
look at them, they are white like a night’s sleep
without touching anywhere, they slide on a thin blade
that raises them slightly over the water.
They are like you, stranger, the still wings and you understand them
while the stone eyes of lions look at you
and the tree’s leaf remains uninscribed in the sky
and the slate pencil pierced the prison wall.
And yet the birds that slaughtered the village girls weren’t other than them
the blood turned the milk red on the street’s flagstones
and their horses noiselessly drew in the troughs
illegible shapes like molten lead.
And the night slowly tightened their leaning necks
that didn’t sing as there was no way to die but beat decapitating bones of people blindly.
And their wings cooled the horror.
And whatever happened had the serenity of what you see before you
they had the same serenity because there wasn’t any soul left in us to contemplate
other than the craving to incise some marks on the stones
that have now touched the bottom below memory.
We are with them as well, far away, very far away, stop passer-by
before the still lake with the unblemished swans
that travel like white rags in your mind
and they wake you up to things you lived but don’t remember.
You don’t even remember reading our writings on the stones
yet you remain ecstatic along with your sheep
that make your body big with their wool
now that you feel in your veins the sound of sacrifice.
Χρυσόθεμις//Chrysothemis
Ήταν μια γεύση —δεν ξέρω— από βαθύ γαλάζιο διαλυμένο —
μια γεύση υπαρκτής ανυπαρξίας, υπογραμμισμένης κάποτε
από τη μετακίνηση κάποιου πουλιού στον ύπνο του· —μια σιγαλιά πολύβοη—
κι εγώ ήμουν ολόκληρη η σιωπή και μέρος της σιωπής. Δάγκωνα ένα μυρτόκλωνο
μη και φωνάξω. Γιατί το ’νιωθα: το στόμα μου μεγάλωνε
θαυμαστικό, για μια μεγάλη κραυγή, και τα δόντια μου
αραίωναν κι αυτά, χωρίζονταν, για ν’ αφήσουν διέξοδο
σ’ εκείνη την κραυγή. Την κράτησα. Διαλύθηκε εντός μου.
Αυτή ’ταν η σιωπή. Κι εγώ ήμουν αέρινη — μπορούσα να πετάξω.
This was a taste, I don’t know, of deep, faded light-blue,
a taste of existent inexistence, sometimes underlined by
the great movement of a bird in its sleep, a noisy calmness,
and I was part of silence, the whole silence. I bit on a myrtle
leaf so that I wouldn’t yell, since I felt it: my mouth was
enlarged to an exclamation ready to yell and my teeth
thinned up, separated one from the other to make room
for that yell. I withheld it. It vanished inside me. This was
silence and I was airy, I could fly.
Manolis Aligizakis 