DEVIL WITH A CANDLESTICK

Sometime while I talk I suddenly start laughing

uncontrollably because I died at twelve years of age.

I remember details, the funeral service, father was

drinking a lot, mother was crying, my older brother

           had gone to the movies

and I, wretched in my coffin, was thinking the evening

           family meeting

and the daring position they had found me with my

           cousin.

For this, I’m saying to you, it’d be perfect if one,

during a night, was able to lift all forgetfulness off

the poor hats and survived eating gauzes in old train

stations only to make an armchair for the leftover apples

or to cry so much that the grandfather’s clock would

            ring again

and tell to all our friends that all who don’t remember

eternity they’ve truly lost it.

Now, the hanged people go up riding the elevator,

           no one notices them,

the old woman is fishing in her lentils for all the old

          drowned men and sometime a delayed one,

at night, sees our titles written on the skin

of the killed dog.

However, Pilot, upon seeing that it was of no use and

everything was just noise, he stopped the ceremony;

they say that during the same night the parish women

          gave birth to small wax semblances

and father, once merchant, after he lost all we had, stood

          outside the stores and

one night I saw him stooped over the garbage “father what

are you doing there?”

“I’m looking for that old cigar”, he said.

Next morning we put him in the Asylum, with a box

of cigars that I managed to buy with some borrowed

            money.

Since then I know a lot about parent killers. And I

            gave up smoking.

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Dead End

In the fall we heard horns of the ancient hunters
blare from under the arches The dowser
sat by the door
In front of Government House they burned kites Farther on
the statue was alone naked completely shivering on its pedestal
(the one that had endured so much to become a statue)
now totally forgotten secretly contemplated in the rock
a new amazing straddle that would draw
the hunters’ attention the butcher’s baker’s widow’s
disproving what he’d dreamed of the most: his unblemished
his glorified his made-of-marble comfortably crucified
motionlessness

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New Safeguards

Silent mornings as the leaves fall, a pause

under the perforated domes of trees,

deep pause of the roots in the soil. Two old men

sit on the bench; they stare at their hands. A woman

gathers fruit from the low branches, the other

woman disappears on the treetop. Later on

the sun strikes its pan on the garden railings;

then the women come down from the trees,

shake off their dresses, get inside the houses,

tidy the rooms, make the beds;

they hold the big despotic guarding brooms

which remind us that we have to always protect

ourselves from something.   

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Poem by Nanos Valaoritis

THE RIDDLE

The root of a tree consumes my shape

a stone pricks my finger

and skins my brain

my eyes become prey of the leaves

owls hide behind my eyelids

my steps self-delete, stay still

become mouths among the memorial shrubs

a butterfly sucks all of my being

sparks and smoke come out of my nostrils

like the dragons who were corals in ancient times

like the thistle among the grass blades

wind whirls forget of me and deny me

flowers stick their tongues out to me

terraces walk over me

I hate the springs and I trade their wishes

I’m the favored of the waves like the pebbles

I refuse to retreat opposite the wind

to melt in the furnaces of heated baths

to burn on charcoal like a crab

to make superhuman efforts to talk

to save myself

from the conflagration I alone started

I shine like a diamond but I’m not a star

who am I then if I’m not who I am

a heavenly or earthly body, massive, fluid or airy?

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Promise

I know it well, he said

no one will come

to meet me at the station where

loneliness says goodbye

I know it well

for the words I spoke

bounced hopelessly off their ears

innocence of the old days turned   

into today’s consumerism

and I grew too soft to lie

so I’ll carry my leaper’s body 

over roads and slow moving paths

hollow husk of corn

windblown onto the sidewalk

where tearless Hades lurks 

I know it well, he said

joyously for the end I long

in this narrow grieving street

though before I leave

to you, my friends, I promise

the same song to repeat

next time around

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LIVES

And lives go on until they wither

I talk of lives that gave themselves

to light, serene love, lives which

go down like babbling brooks

hiding in them this light

the sky reflects into the rivers

and the sun flows in it.

I speak of lives that gave themselves to light

about the little lives that hang

like rubies from the lips of women

like offerings that hang from

church icons, silver hearts

exquisitely humble, yet in love

with the lips of a woman.

I speak of little lives that hang.

The unsuspicious lives

that silently follow

darkened, foreign, saddened steps

image of a delicate woman

who hasn’t sensed them following

and who will lean onto the earth

and vanish silently: the unsuspicious lives

that vaguely and doubtfully pass

like stars of the morning twilight

in the thought of a morning soul

that hasn’t seen its life

withering slowly just as it ran

joyously and unfettered passing.

Lives that doubtfully and vaguely have passed.

Poem by Harris Psaras

REFLECTION

The door we didn’t open leads

to the rose garden

to the true conflict, between the rose and the thorn

and each error a thick foliage

that hides inside it the birds from the hunter.

The world but a stage show of a travelling troupe

the director quenches his thirst stooping

in the themele. He mistook it for the mouth of the well.

Further on frogs croaked, sang

Attic tragedians with their heavy tones  

Time the flowers’ withering and its counting

cast on a healthy leg. Who has the courage?

Eve and Odoaker dared

but half way on the journey their shoulders gave up

their courage cost them Heaven and Rome 

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ΦΑΙΔΡΑ/PHAEDRA

(Απόσπασμα-Excerpt XXIΙΙ)

Κι ακριβώς τη στιγμή
που ’νιωθα να φαρδαίνουν τα πλευρά μου αδέσμευτα στη βαθύτερη ανάσα, ένας κόμπος
με σταματούσε· — αυτός ο μικρός Εσταυρωμένος
σκαμμένος στο στήθος μου, κι η γνώση
πως θα γυρίσω πίσω· κι ήμουν κιόλας κει μέσα, εδώ μέσα
στη θέση μου κάτω απ’ τη λάμπα, στο τραπέζι,
κοιτάζοντας πίσω απ’ τα ποτήρια, πάνω απ’ τους ώμους σας κι απ’ την αδιάφορη ματιά σας
έξω απ’ το μακρινό παράθυρο, προς τη διάφανη νύχτα όπου είχα δραπετεύσει για λίγο,
απ’ όπου είχα επιστρέψει πιο θλιμμένη, γερασμένη και σαν ταπεινωμένη
μέσα σε μια οργισμένη περηφάνια, να μετράω, να ελέγχω
με τα δικά σας μέτρα τις κινήσεις μου — να κόβω
πολύ προσεχτικά το ψωμί με το μεγάλο μαχαίρι
χωρίς να χαρακώσω το τραπεζομάντιλο ή το ξύλο,
χωρίς να γραντζουνίσω το μικρό σου δάχτυλο ούτε το δικό μου.

Θε μου, δεν την αντέχω αυτή την προσποίηση. Νιώθω
κάθε χειρονομία μου ν’ αφήνει στο ταβάνι, στο πάτωμα, στον τοίχο
ή πάνω στα έπιπλα έναν ίσκιο τεράστιο· ο ίσκιος πολλαπλασιάζεται, απλώνει,
μεγεθύνεται απ’ τη μια στιγμή στην άλλη, καθρεφτίζοντας όλες
τις μυστικές, ενδόμυχες κινήσεις μου.

At the moment

when I felt my ribs, in a borderless expansion of a deep

breath, a lump in my throat stopped me: this little

crucified engrave in my breast, and the knowledge that

I’ll return; and I was already in there, in here in my position

under the light, on the table, looking behind the glasses,

over your shoulders and your vague glance, out that

distant window to the diaphanous night from which

I had escaped for a while, from which I had returned

more sorrowful, older, and humbled, with a furious

pride, to count, to check my movements based on

your criteria — to slice the bread with the knife carefully

without drawing lines on the tablecloth or the wood,

without scratching your fingers nor mine.

God I can’t endure this pretense. I feel that each

of my gestures leaves a huge shadow on the ceiling,

the floor, the wall, or on top of the furniture; the shadow

expands, spreads, multiplies moment by moment, reflecting

all my secret, intimate movements.

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YANNIS RITSOS-POEMS, Selected Books

Η Ελένη/Helen

Είναι κάτι παράξενες στιγμές, μοναχικές, σχεδόν αστείες. Ένας άνθρωπος
περπατάει μεσημεριάτικα φορώντας στο κεφάλι του μια καλαθούνα· το καλάθι
του κρύβει ολάκερο το πρόσωπο σα να ’ναι ακέφαλος ή μεταμφιεσμένος
μ’ ένα τεράστιο αόμματο, πολυόμματο κεφάλι. Ένας άλλος,
καθώς σεργιανάει ρεμβαστικά στο σούρουπο, σκοντάφτει κάπου, βλαστημάει,
γυρίζει πίσω, ψάχνει· — μια ελάχιστη πέτρα· τη σηκώνει· την ασπάζεται· τότε
θυμάται να κοιτάξει ολόγυρά του· απομακρύνεται ένοχα. Μια γυναίκα
χώνει το χέρι της στην τσέπη της· δε βρίσκει τίποτα· βγάζει το χέρι της,
το υψώνει, το παρατηρεί προσεχτικά, σα χνοτισμένο από την πούδρα του άδειου.

There are certain strange lonely moments almost funny A

            man

walks at midday having a huge basket on his head

            the basket

hides his whole face as if he is headless or disguised

with an enormous eyeless plural-eyed head A different man

as he saunters romantically in the dusk stumbles on something

           curses

turns back searches – a very small stone he picks it up

           he kisses it then

he remembers to look around him he leaves as if guilty

           A woman

slips her hand in her pocket she doesn’t find anything

           takes her hand out

raises it observes it carefully as if it was steamed up by

           the powder of emptiness

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