From the Book THE MEDUSA GLANCE
Regime Change
Target country needs
a new despot
failed regime needs
to be changed
bombs, missiles,
guided death
put to work
defence contractor
in overtime
one can’t stand opposite
the deciding elit
with its rightful right
to punish, set straight,
do justice
old despot needs
to be replaced
announced in the evening news
From the book THE MEDUSA GLANCE
Diptych
A clear cut case, the leader
of the free world said
either with us or against us
underlining the war might
stored in dark warehouses housing
his selected war toys
his opponent, on the far away land, blinked
his eyes before the economic
slavery of multinationals and
devastatedly falling bombs
to smartly flatten desert land
a clear cut case, the leader
of the free world said
either with us or against us
POEM BY MANOLIS ANAGNOSTAKIS
YOUNG MEN FROM SIDON
We shouldn’t complain, really
your company was pleasant and full of vigor:
freshened girls, wholesome boys
full of love for life and for adventures
and your songs were sweet and meaningful
very sentimental, humane
for the children who died over the other continent
for the heroes killed in past years
for revolutionaries with black, green, reddish skin
for the grief of every suffering man
this involvement especially an honour for you
for today’s problems and struggle
you always appear and you fight, therefore
I believe it’s your right to play
in groups of two or three at a time
and to fall in love
to just relax, brothers, after such tiredness
(George, have you noticed we’ve aged prematurely?)
Poem by Kiki Dimoula
SOME NIGHTS
Now that my old visions
have vanished far away into the seas
and their shape can’t reach me
and their memory has left me
I haven’t ever wished
to return to such thoughts
yet during
some endless nights
and almost tirelessly
my old visions
from the far away seas
I recall
Poem from the book EL GRECO
Red Carpet
Like a red carpet I lay my heart
before all the ethereal fleshless
images which you have graced
with life.
in front of your fiery passion
for greatness, charisma which
transcends the ephemeral,
the only means you need.
Great grandfather were men
the same in your days?
How did your Cretan glance
embrace them?
How did the Cretan sun
which you carried in your heart
shine on them?
Your ever enduring masterpieces
your endless inspiration but a
witness to your splendorous vision,
to your celestial fervor.
A witness to your
relentless effort to unfold,
one by one, man’s
heart like the petals of a rose.
A witness to your
undying yearning to transcend
one by one the layers
of a man’s caged substance.
Step by step on the ladder upwards.
Less flesh forward:
spirit only.
Poem by GEORGE VIZYENOS
PARABLE
The morning star can never shine
as you when you appear, joy-giving lass
nor does the green clover have as much
as you have freshness on your sweetened lips
nor do the flowers of narcissus have
such fragrance as your lightest breath
nor does the bird know how to sing such
sweet songs as your inventive lips.
One only it can’t learn—to sing I love you—
and for this, I dare to say, another soul may die.
Hues
Why stand by your door
gazing the mountain
as if trying to paint it green
on the retinas of your eyes
and the light breeze how can
you paint it when you’re
blinded by emotion?
To what end do you point
your hand at the ice caped
peaks as if to let them know about
the ghosts never passing by
anymore, as if to tell them that
spring is coming soon
when they exude green velvet
when they redress in light hues?
ΕΠΙΣΤΡΟΦΗ
Στο βάθος, όμως, ήξερα πως κάτι το απροσδόκητο θα τα μα-
ταίωνε όλα ξαφνικά, κι όταν τους άκουγα να μιλάνε, ένιωθα σαν
να μην είχα μεγαλώσει ποτέ, τόσο ήταν αδιάφοροι (κι έπρεπε να το
προφυλάξω και κανένα μέρος δεν ήταν ασφαλές), κι όπως πήγαινα
στο δρόμο, έρημος, άπλωμα το χέρι χωρίς να `ναι κανείς, γιατί
ποιος μας λέει ότι δεν είναι κάποιος εκεί που περιμένει, τότε χτύ-
πησαν την πόρτα “πως ήρθες;” του λέω, ήταν ένα παλιός παιδικός
φίλος “έχω κάτι να τελειώσω ακόμα” είπε κι όλη τη νύχτα άκουγα
τους λυγμούς του στη διπλανή κάμαρα, γιατί είχε πεθάνει πολύ
νέος κι ήρθε να κλάψει, ώστε να τελειώσει ο προορισμός του
πάνω στη γη.
RETURN
In reality I knew that suddenly something unforeseen would had
cancelled everything and when I heard them talking I felt as if I hadn’t
grown at all so indifferent they were (and I had to protect that and
there wasn’t any safe place anywhere) and as I walked into the street
I, as desolate as ever, stretched my arm to no one because who knows
whether someone would be there waiting; then the doorbell rang “why
you returned?” I asked him; he was an old childhood friend “I still
have something to finish” he said and all night long I heard him sobbing
in the next room because he had died very young and he had come
back here to cry that his purpose on earth would be fulfilled.
IV
Next to the bed by the wall
marks of a girl
playing with the warn stucco
sometimes a person’s face
sometimes a ship
foretells the future
the fairy with the seven fingers dances
the serpent, the old nail
tie the tale together.
Turned to the wall
friendship with an unknown
tears for a death
— always a sudden death,
mine, my mother’s —
and flowers, a lot of flowers
in the remote chapel by the rock
solemn promise to Alexander the Great
and to the other saints…
the dream, but a yellow wall
and the incisions talk to children
and frighten the adults.
Teaching
And Themis was put in a dark dungeon
while I faced my kin’s delirious eyes
yet, though I had much to say,
I kept silent, momentarily, to give
time to their simple-mindedness
bubbling along with the creek’s murmur
innocent smile of child upon which
I entrusted my hope to rediscover justice
with spring flowers rejuvenating
the veins of impeccable Eros
my distraught friends remained imprisoned
and I, dressed in rags, walked over the lands,
and being soft-spoken and with new symbols
with new follies and new anecdotes,
I tried to revert the beliefs of
new Judases born with sharpened teeth
ready to devour each other
nothing to leave for the winds
the rightful inheritors of my teachings
Manolis Aligizakis 