Peaceful Panorama
On the other side of the window
a garden with orange trees
Intoxicating
the perfume of the blossoms
No people
no cars
a cloudless heaven
Only a blackbird
praising the perfection
of silence.
Germain Droogenbroodt
ΠΑΝΟΡΑΜΑ
Έξω απ’ το παράθυρο
ο κήπος με τις πορτοκαλλιές
το άρωμα των λουλουδιών μεθύσι
δίχως ανθρώπους
δίχως αυτοκίνητα
ασυννέφιαστος παράδεισος
και μόνο ο κοτσυφός
υμνεί την τελειότητα
της σιωπής
Μετάφραση Μανώλη Αλυγιζάκη//Translated by Manolis Aligizakis
Persephone
Perhaps for this reason we finally chose the shadow.
Darkness is black, glossy black, unaltered, without
shades; you’re saved from the effort to choose, for
what reason anyway?
That servant
was black as if made of darkness. You remember?
When he grabbed me we were gathering flowers
in the big plain. The baskets were full of crocuses,
violets, lilies, roses, hyacinths, amaranth. I had stooped
over a most beautiful flower, looked like narcissus,
a narcissus I saw for the first time, with a hundred colours,
a hundred stems over which dewdrops sparkled. And I,
there amazed, leaning over, as if folded in two,
as if leaning over a water well, was looking at my face,
almost self-content, in love with the rosy shadow on
the edge of my lips and with the crisp, ivory contour
between my breasts.
Poem by Kostas Karyotakis
I WANT TO LEAVE
I want to leave this place, to go far away
I want to become golden dust in the air
simple element, free, brave
to an unfamiliar new land I’ll go
where things of the world will appear
like dreams and they’ll talk to the soul
where the nice faces of people will smile
and where I too shall be beautiful
where, my god, darkness wouldn’t exist
in the night, nor in the despair of the place
upon the horrible skyline or in the wind’s wailing
nor in the glances or words of people
where there won’t remain anything
but a little joy and satisfaction
where all will say that they have left forever
that perhaps they are all already dead.
Miracle
It is a miracle – he says – even more than a miracle
where everything is exhausted (and first of all me) I discover
amid the pebbles at the seashore the holy skull
of one of Achille’s horses – perhaps that of Xanthos
amid the chamomiles I discover the Patriarch’s crutch
I lift it reverently I climb up the marble stairs
I don’t pound the steps with it scores of people gather
I stand before the podium I feel my hair becoming motionless
flowing on my shoulders scores of people can’t wait they jostle
I open my mouth to speak and suddenly I understand
that I am deaf and they hear me
The Real Reason
No, it’s not that Apollo took back his promise and
the fact that he spat on Cassandra’s mouth annulled
the convincing of her speech thus making her
prophetic words ineffective for herself and others. No.
It’s because no one wants to believe in truth. And when
you see the net inside the bath, you think that it’s
put there for your fishing trip next day and you don’t
hear at all within you and without, ascending the marble
stairs of the castle, the dark message in the cries
of ill-fated Cassandra.
Principles
You coached leaves of the olive tree to
shred sunlight and you begged
finches to whistle summer
but you left my lips unkissed
except while foreign lands rejoiced
in your principles, behind you
this yellow wall’s firm blocks
of the abandoned building
overgrown with brier where
cicadas compose adagios
gardenias sweating aromas
but you exiled my lips
while only seagulls kept you company
and my sobs hushed the night
Picture by Germain Droogenbroodt
DAWN OF HOPE
The light of dawn
erases the traces of the night.
Relentlessly, time goes on flowing,
although I wish it would stop
like a picture fixed by the camera’s lens
because as valuable like fruit in a tree is love.
Like the moon ascending at night,
so you are, my love.
Whatever happens, wherever you are,
I keep you in my heart.
Since I am in love with you, my world has changed
for two hearts found a home of tenderness.
Sunrays play on the strings of love
lighting up the dawn of hope.
ANNA KEIKO, CHINA
Translation Anna Keiko – Germain Droogenbroodt – Stanley Barkan
ΕΛΠΙΔΟΦΟΡΟ ΠΡΩΙΝΟ
Το λυκαυγές σβύνει
τ’απομεινάρια της νύχτας
ασταμάτητος κυλά ο χρόνος
που θα `θελα να σταματούσε
σαν φωτογραφία στο φακό μηχανής
σαν το φρούτο στο δέντρο
πολύτιμη είναι η αγάπη
σαν το φεγγάρι που φωτίζεται τη νύχτα
είσαι αγάπη μου
κι όπου κι αν είσαι κι ότι κι αν συμβεί
σ’ εχω πάντα στην καρδιά μου.
Που σ’ αγαπώ ο κόσμος έχει αλλάξει
κι οι καρδιές μας χτυπούν με την ίδια τρυφερότητα.
Ηλιαχτίδες παίζουν της αγάπης τις χορδές
φωτίζοντας την πρωϊνή ελπίδα
Μετάφραση Μανώλη Αλυγιζάκη//Translated by Manolis Aligizakis
HEDONISM
A fleshless string of beads made of songs
I haven’t given you today
with the spells and games of a charmer
I’ll cloy you, my love
naked and like a vine I’ll climb
to taste your body that devours me
with my fingers I’ll conflagrate
the tender hairs of your mound
enrapturing wine and milk that soothes
to sleep I’ll bring to moisten you
with all my body drop by drop
and on your white sculptured legs
two vases that drive me crazy
my honey like a maniac, at last, I’ll ejaculate
REPETITIONS THIRD SERIES
Extract
From all we read, only that messenger remained
who was striking the bronze door knob of the temple,
not what he said nor what was said by the angry king,
who was moving his wide sleeves. Only the sound
of the door knob echoes in the dark rooms and
in the empty pedestal of the wooden statue
of the Deer Goddess, which stolen and
on the ship it now travels to Athens — the sound
of the oars along with the sound of the door knob.
Luckily, he said, we retain things like these,
consoling things, unaltered, united
as if we are unaltered too.
THE FUNERAL OF SARPEDON
Zeus is deep in sorrow. Patroklos
killed Sarpedon; and now the son of Menoetios
and the Acheans charge in
to seize and humiliate the body.
But Zeus doesn’t agree with all this.
His beloved boy—whom he left
to perish; that was the Law—
he will at least honor in death.
And, look, he sends Apollo down to the plain
well briefed on what to do with the body.
With reverence and sorrow Apollo lifts
the hero’s body and carries it to the river.
He washes away the dust and the blood;
he closes the terrible wounds, not letting
any trace of them show; he pours
ambrosial perfumes; and dresses him
in gleaming Olympian garments.
He blanches the skin white; and with a pearl
comb combs the jet black hair.
He straightens and arranges the beautiful limbs.
Now he looks like a king, a charioteer—
twenty-five, or twenty-six years old—
at leisure after winning
the prize in a very famous race
with his golden chariot and fleet steeds.
Having finished his task
Apollo sends for the two brothers
Sleep and Death, and orders them
to take the body to Lykia, the rich land.
And toward that rich land, Lykia,
these two brothers Sleep and Death
walk, and when they arrive
at the door of the royal house,
they deliver the glorious body,
then return to their other labors and cares.
And when they received the body there, in the house,
with processions, and mourning, and honors,
and with abundant libations from sacred chalices,
and all things due, the sorrowful burial began.
And after that, experienced workers from the city
and famous carvers of stone came
to build the tomb and the stele.
Manolis Aligizakis 