Poem by Manolis Aligizakis
WHAT IF
If you didn’t get to the train station
at that exact time you wouldn’t
have met him you wouldn’t have
started dating you wouldn’t have
married you wouldn’t have
the twins graduating this year and
where would you be now
should you had taken the next train?
ORESTES (excerpt)
I too want to see father’s murder under the soothing
generality of death, to forget of him in the wholeness
of death that awaits us too. This night has taught me
the innocence of all the usurpers. We’re all usurpers
of something — of the people, the throne, of Eros or
even of death. My sister the usurper of my only life
and I of yours.
My sweet man, with such patience, you share
the foolish events of others. Yet my hand is yours,
take it, usurp it too — yours, it is yours for this reason;
take it, squeeze it; you expect it to be free of punishments,
retaliations, memories, free of all — I want it free too,
that it’ll only belong to me so that I’ll give it to you
completely. Forgive me this secret loneliness and sharing,
you know that it splits me in two. What a beautiful night.
FLOOR PLAN
5
Resistance
With the playing of the eyelid
the small finger of the grass
with silence, with a word
with a walk or motionlessness
behind the train window
the myopic man’s glasses
the cop’s cigarette
the paper under the door
the shoe, cough, signal
even with the star
that star next to the chimney
how do they see and walk
in such a night?
Poem by Manolis Aligizakis
IMAGE
Like an ancient
repeatedly hymned sin
your body that I crave
to re-explore
gleams in my mind
like that first time
under the shade of the olive tree
whispering softly
yes, yes
ORESTES (excerpt)
She retains her anger in the intensity of her voice —
(if she would lose that voice what of her would had
remained?) I believe she’s afraid of the fulfillment of
punishment, as if she wouldn’t have anything left. She
has never heard the secret rustle of brushwood when a
lissome animal passes just out of the windows, during
the supper; she has never seen the rope-ladder, left, for
no apparent reason, on the high, bare wall on a holiday;
she never paid attention to that, for no apparent reason;
she has never paid attention to the hairy top of corn
scratching the sole of the smallest cloud, or the shape
of a water pitcher under the starry sky, or a sickle
left by itself next to the spring, at noon, or the shadow
of the loom in the closed room, when they sprinkle
sulfur on the grapevine plants and the voices of farmers
are heard in the plain, while a sparrow, all alone in the
world, eating the little flies, seeds, some crumbs in
the yard, tries to spell its freedom. She has seen
nothing.
TROJANS
Our efforts are like those of the unfortunate;
like the efforts of the Trojans.
We succeed a bit; we regain
our confidence; and we start feeling
brave and having high hopes.
But always something comes up and stops us.
Achilles appears in front of us in the trench
and with loud shouts frightens us back.—
Our efforts are like those of the Trojans.
We think that with resolution and boldness
we can reverse the downhill course of fate,
and we stand outside ready to fight.
But when the great crisis comes,
our boldness and resolution vanish;
our soul is shaken, paralyzed;
and we run around the walls
trying to save ourselves by running away.
And yet our fall is certain. High up,
on the walls, the dirge has already started
mourning memories and auras of our days.
Priam and Hecuba weep bitterly for us.
Poem by Manolis Aligizakis
TENDERNESS
Your fingers
tenderly entangled
with mine
melodious harmony
of ten stars
whispering
I love you
Long Listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards
Pointless wandering in the streets, foggy lights
that distort the faces
trying among the crowd to steal a little of the others’
indifference
undressing all the women as if to discover a rose
from her; believing in yourself, like a child who
hides behind the humble chair with the hole
and fools himself that he’s not seen.
My hands are two heavy useless animals since
they don’t hug you
I hate my eyes that don’t reflect your smile anymore
I’d like to pound the streets with my fists, the busses,
trolleys which once led us to our happiness and
to create a deserted city because of your unbearable
absence.
Foggy, sleepy windows of the earthly taverns
where drunkenness, craziness, misfortune and
a piece of the sky’s starlit indifference are reflected.
And always that strange sense of the haunted deserter
who, between the death he escaped and the death
that waits for him,
suddenly, teary, feels the futility of all triumphs
and the resignation of its denial.
No, not from the enemy, comrade, tonight protect
yourself from me.
ORESTES (Excerpt)
And she insists to mix honey and water for the dead
who don’t feel thirsty anymore nor hungry, nor do they
have a mouth; dead who don’t dream of restitutions or
revenge. She always evokes her unmistaken (which one?)
perhaps to avoid the responsibility of her decision and
choice, when the teeth of the dead, naked, scattered on
the soil, become the white seeds in an immense, black
plain that will sprout the only true, invisible, snow white
trees that will phosphoresce in the moonlight to the end
of times.
Ah, how she can deal with such words out of her mouth,
words taken out of, yes, old chests (like those decorated
with big nails), words pulled up from amid mother’s
old hats, which she doesn’t wear anymore. You saw her
in the garden this afternoon? — how nice she still is —
she hasn’t aged at all, perhaps because she looks after
time and acts accordingly — I mean she renews herself
knowing the youth she loses and perhaps this way she
reacquires it.
Poem by Miltos Sachtouris
THE NEGLECTED
III
The neglected one extends her white hand
as she takes a colourful piece of glass and sings
“I call you not in my dream
but among these colourful fragments of broken glass
but you always leave
now, yes, your face truly scares me
and as I join these pieces of glass
I can’t see you whole
sometimes I put together only your head
among all the other wild heads
which alienate me
other times I put together your beloved body
among a thousand other mutilated bodies
other times just your blessed hand
among the thousands of other extended hands
which torment my legs under my dresses
they tie my eyes with their black kerchiefs
they order me to walk without turning my head
back
to see your eyes as they shatter.
Manolis Aligizakis 