October
autumn offers its benches
under the rusty foliage dropping
the quivering dirt gets stuck to your
foot you may hear its rustling spinning later on when
underneath the crows’ wings
light conceals
and the bizarre sneak of the rats
among chess pieces that
look black from one end to the other
the letters on the page fall
it squeaks underneath one’s soles
from somewhere to something
lonely girl wanders
at night
October
under the darkness of cold quilts
I cover myself
Excerpt
We shall straddle over the Alps,
the current of the Rhone we
shall surprise, we shall colour
the darkness of the north
with white, we shall charge
the mind of April and May
we shall sow a new Hellas
and a new youth in every
land we shall grow roots
and wherever we find
darkness we shall spread
new planets shining in
our splendorous light,
ascetics will befriend
life again and you will
again drink the milk of joy,
oh fasting man, a glass
of wine will make you drunk.
The Celts and Goths and
Germans and all barbarians
will rejoice in our company
and first of all the Italian
cassock covered priests and pontiffs
will bow before the feet
of Helen and they will
revere the swan of Eurotas.
After the Effort
The horrified face was almost covered. Dishevelled hair, ripped
shirt, bruised flesh. They gave him back the leather belt,
the wristwatch, and the black comb left on the long table. He
took them. He didn’t know what to put on first, his watch,
his belt? Where would he place his comb? He looked at
his ID papers, “Lucas” it said. “Lucas,” he said to himself.
he didn’t raise his eyes; he put on the watch with slow haste
(The table was the reason, such empty, and dark as it was
and with a scratched corner), he put his belt on and tied it.
He was still tightening it when he walked to the hallway; the
old bathrooms stunk, the pipes dripped, the boy at the cafe
was collecting the bottles and the guards were talking
through the skylight. “Lucas, Lucas” he repeated as if
talking to a foreigner, in a foreign language. The evening
had arrived. The streetlights and the lights of the Museum
were just turned on.
Long Listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards
https://griffinpoetryprize.com/press/2023-longlist-announcement/
Last Command
Each night, a lament was coming from the empty
glasses of the alcoholics, dirty desires, harassed me
in the laundry room however, a shadow of a spider
was enough to open heavenly melodies on the wall;
I stood by the stairs, I ran to order their coffees,
for this, they never looked at the sky to see me
sitting to His right; only the old woman put incense
in the censer and climbing on the smoke, she slept
with me.
It was a star-filled night, and children waited
for words from the animals while I, in the middle
of the fields, so sad that a flock of birds could fly
through my body, taking all the coal dust of
the deserted stations with the forgotten people,
went out to the marketplace and had nothing
else to sell, I sold my confessions for the blessing
of my future days.
When I finally sat to rest, it was very late,
the wind brought bells, the day returned, and
I was expelled, I who one night in the fields
grew breasts to feed an old beggar who was
begging for his mother in his last moments.
That night, I emptied so much that when
they threw the knife at me it didn’t have
any flesh to pierce.
Manolis Aligizakis 