Painting by Tineke Storteboom

I Thought Of You

I thought of you and how you love this beauty,
And walking up the long beach all alone
I heard the waves breaking in measured thunder
As you and I once heard their monotone.

Around me were the echoing dunes, beyond me
The cold and sparkling silver of the sea —
We two will pass through death and ages lengthen
Before you hear that sound again with me.

Sara Teasdale,  USA (1884 – 1933

ΣΕ ΘΥΜΗΘΗΚΑ

Σε θυμήθηκα και πόσο λάτρευες αυτή την ομορφιά

καθώς βαδίζοντας μόνος στον έρημο γιαλό

πρόσεξα τον ήχο των κυμάτων που έσπαζαν άηχες βροντές

σαν κάποτε που το μονόλογο αυτό ακούσαμε μαζί.

Γύρο μου ο απόηχος της αμμουδιάς, πέρα μακριά

τ’ ασήμι της λαμπερής και κρύας θάλασσας.

Χρόνια πολλά και θάνατος πρόκειται να περάσουν

ώσπου την ηχώ αυτή να  ξανακούσουμε μαζί. 

Μετάφραση Μανώλη Αλυγιζάκη//Translated by Manolis Aligizakis

THEODOTOS

If you are truly one of the chosen,

look carefully at how you gain your power.

No matter how much you are glorified, no matter

how loudly the cities in Italy and Thessaly

praise your achievements, no matter

how many decrees in your honor

are issued by your admirers in Rome,

neither your joy nor your triumph will last,

and how superior—what does it mean superior?

are you going to feel, when in Alexandria, Theodotos

brings you, on a blood-stained tray

the head of a despondent Pompeius.

And don’t content yourself with the fact

that in your banal, restrained, and regulated life

such phenomenal and terrifying things don’t happen.

Perhaps at this hour Theodotos—invisible, fleshless—

enters the well-ordered house of your neighbor

carrying such a hideous head.

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OCEAN’S MARCH (Excerpt XI)

In the girls’ glances  the echo

of a big morning forest shivers

in musical limpidity

and trust

But as the serene houses wave

to us tenderly

with the stooping acacia on the white wall

the flash of the great sea

will come among us

to win us over once again

Eh captain

eat your dried-up bread quickly

and the black olive

dipped in salt and in the sun

over the vertical rock

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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.

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Repetitions, Series III

Our Life in Phares

After all the misfortunes we became very superstitious.

We pay attention to the shadows of birds and leaves

we hear unheard off sounds, we step back,

late in the dusk, on tiptoes, we enter the temple

we burn incense on the altar, we fill the lamps with oil,

we place our bronze coin offering on the altar

we near the god’s ear and whispering we ask: “when?”,

“from where?” “with what?” And then we seal our ears

shut and leave. When we reach out to the marketplace,

we unseal our ears at once — the first word we hear

is the answer of the god. That word is never the one

we wished to hear, perhaps we misheard. Then again

we restart the same tedious process — the temple,

the candles, our bronze coin offering and the marketplace

up to the hour that the stores close, they turn off

the lamps, and we, alone in the street, walk along

the walls, perusing that word letter by letter, reversing

the syllables, without ever reaching that which we prefer.

Thus, as you say, we spend our lives now in Phares

between the deserted marketplace and the inauspicious

oracles.

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ELYSIAN FIELDS

Bodies extremely tired

bent, cut in half

souls deserted them, walk alone

on the grass slowly, open books laid

the bodies lay down, crunched

distorted and they appear

at the far end holding roses and with

the dream and passion they go

dust to dust the bodies become

yet far in the horizon, like suns

the souls go down dressed in sky

or like simple smiles on lips

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Detail, sculpture by Giacomo Manzu

I nestle close to your breast I desire to hear
life’s mystery warmth like light reveals
the inner sense of quietude you suffer with
I listen to your regular heartbeat and I seem
to be a castaway on shore – one by one I am
battered by the waves of your silent words
and pushing me farther and farther into the deep
of the unknown land, away from the depths
of your soul

                 Dariusz Tomasz Lebioda (Poland 1939)

                                      ΦΩΛΕΙΑ

                Φωλειάζω κοντά στο στήθος σου

                 πεθυμώ να μάθω  το μυστήριο της ζωής

                 ζεστασιά που μόνο το φως αποκαλύπτει

                 την εσωτερική σιωπή που υποφέρεις

                 αφουρκάζομαι τους κανονικούς παλμούς της καρδιάς σου

                 και μοιάζω σαν ναυαγός στην ακροθαλασσιά— απανωτά

                 τα κύματα με χτυπούν οι ανήπωτες σου λέξεις

                 με ωθούν πέρα και πιο πέρα στο βάθος

                 άγνωρης γης, μακριά απ’ την ψυχή σου

Μετάφραση Μανώλη Αλυγιζάκη//Translated by Manolis Aligizakis 

Dariusz Tomasz Lebioda (Poland 1939)

THE GATE

(Excerpt 3)

We had forgotten about patience, we now needed a new one

              multiplied

deeper than silence, deeper than the ancient organ that blows,

breathes air comes out of it but no sound, the fingers freeze,

the knees of the blind man and his ears too and his nose with

              the ring made of nickel.

He was washing his hands in the sink as if after the killing;

the other said, we all die in the most inappropriate moment

and all the certificates, papers upon papers, coffins, horses,

             coffee;

the dead have it better;

                                   Yet, the third man said, until you die

you remain here and you observe your wholesome death

              behind the curtain

on the lighted windowpanes; two shoeless girls water the

flowerbeds in the garden; the dog bites onto the grass, runs,

chases its tail, eyes the sun, the rubber hose, water drops fall

               on the chest of the statue,

pass them, he said, through a thread and place them around

                your neck;

far into the future you learn about the unachievable, you still

                have time;

however, you have to die with that curtain so flooded by light,

with red,  or light-blue birds and triangular, yellow daisies.

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Echo

She opened her window

motionless powerful feminine

exhilarating gesture

that shook me

and memory rekindled

paradisiacal kisses

I dreamed of capturing

the echo of a raindrop

falling through fog 

into the plaza fountain

greetings, oh life,

here I am too:

splash!

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WISE MEN SENSE THE FORTHCOMING

         …for gods perceive the future,

         most people perceive what takes place now,

         and wise men sense approaching events.

                   Philostratos, “Life of Apollonius of Tyana” viii, 7.

People know what is happening now.

The gods know future events, only they

have complete possession of the light.

But wise men can sense what is coming.

Sometimes their hearing is disturbed

during a time of serious contemplation.

The mysterious roar of upcoming

events reaches them. And they pay attention

to it with reverence. While outside in the street,

the people hear nothing at all.