POEM BY MARIA POLYDOURI

ONE DAY I CAME

Guided by your holy love, one day

I came to the glaucous waves

and you let me see the flaming

wound on your youthful heart

and in your calm voice you said to me

this was the endless misery of your life

you felt that I reached deep in your heart

your tears flowed most sweetly

the joy of joys in tears when we sang

to the same tune, a bitter omen

even perhaps forgetting our loneliness

and I ran away to welcome the waves

that I’d sprinkle joy upon your face

with the sea’s most bitter froth.

‘Karyotakis-Polydouri: The Tragic Love Story’ poetry translated 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

jealous, sophisticated,

eternal wisdom staring

and softly whispering

yes, yes

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POEM BY HARRIS VLAVIANOS

LORD BYRON JUST BEFORE, JUST AFTER

                       If you lament for your youth why you live?

                       Here is the land of the glorious death

                       rush into the battle, give your last breath

                       without hesitation at this very point

                       long for — it’s easy to long, not to find —

                       your burial site, soldier, the most appropriate for you

                       then, look here, choose the soil

                       where you will lean and rest

                       Today I turn thirty years old, Messologi, January 22, 1824

Who could be a writer

if one had something better to do?

Lord Byron asked his Greek servant

as he looked through the open window

of his old crumbly house

at the hordes of the Ottoman Empire soldiers

encircling the walls of the city.

He had just finished

the first verse of the poem

which was meant to be his last.

He turned thirty years old that day.

Three months later

the strange, civil-warred place

which he had chosen as his homeland

would grace him his wish:

a death worthy of his name

an heroic exit from the unbearable boredom of poesie 

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Review

Today I meet

the lone wild rose

rusted by salinity of time

on the side of my path

dehydrated crab shells

malodorous that

not long ago thrived with life

hungry seagulls

foresee the invincible end

condors of the seashore

encircle the heart’s open wound

rotting on earth

and in the air

condor sniffs my old body

only the symbols retain their shine

and lead my tired steps

straight to the cemetery

where fame overlooks and myths reign

one day my life will be explained

where my arthritic joins

hardly endure the passing

of the last moments

there where years later

with a full wallet I return

to order my golden gravestone

that the simpleminded will say

the bitter truth: he too exiled

himself, he too was ours

and they’ll blaspheme an old man

for the mistake he made

in his unfledged youth.

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At the Museum

He slipped inside the steel armory

at the corner of the Museum

to fight perhaps or

just to hide?

Time passed.

The guard clinks his keys.

He locks.

Would at least the statues agree?

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Athens

Cement cubicles

securing, enclosing, keeping

imprisoned worlds

a smoking barbeque

man holding a spoon

stands next to his shadow that

uplifts his stature

in the glare of sun taking him hostage

sparrow hops on the railing

miracle hoping for hopelessness

of forthcoming breeze

man begging for direction in

the cacophony of concrete declaring

values in cubic meters in this

cement city with eons under its skin

captive of the merciless light

while ghosts of trees meditate

on the value of green

and the man cooks his evening meal

with endless fortitude that absolves

all matters in the presence of hunger

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Alien Death

When he walked to the upper room of the hospital

he saw the sick man totally covered

with a white starched sheet – perhaps he had

been dead for a while Right above the bed

on the bare wall his pants were hanging

with two legs opened and nailed

like a triangular arch of cloth From there

you could pass straight into the garden of the museum

with replicas of ancient statues with couples

on benches and roasted chickpea sellers

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POEM BY HARIS VLAVIANOS

GIFT FROM HEAVEN

What makes you believe that

I can still live in a room

from which you have removed

with certain gusto I may add

one of its four walls?

I agree the view is better —

not that one can see at the far end

Arno and the Ponte Vecchio —

but you think this major renovation

is a good reason for us to return

with our reignited courage

during the first act of the play?

And the four syllable word on the wine bottle

and the meat cooked with prunes

and the candles that supposedly repel the mosquitos

what do they truly mean?

And the young server

with the heavy accent

from which Russian novel

has he suddenly sprang up?

And how the fact that Adorno

as you tell me emphatically

had dined with Greta Garbo

in Los Angeles in 1944

and that his dog, Ali Baba — what a name

urinated onto her book

change anything?

Do you hear the rustle of the leaves

and the voices of the children

who come down our street

on their rollerblades?

Do you know that the message they carry

belongs to a future

you haven’t imagined?

Close your eyes for a while.

Sometimes is better to look at reality

without trying to estimate

in how many minutes the sun will go down

besides right now

the point isn’t

this particular sundown

but the gift it has given us.

Did you say — wasted years?

Don’t turn melancholy.

Is there ever a Paradise

that is not lost

at the end of the dream?

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