POEM BY KATERINA GOGOU

III

Our forests were made of glass

along the trees — motels

strange rooms with harmonious sounds

only the musicians kept vigil

with the flattened kites and spider webs

golden and purple that entwined

the web of love around their necks

just before morning twilight

they left with helicopters

a dust cloud of blue stars

showed them the way.

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LONG LISTED FOR THE 2023 GRIFFIN POETRY AWARDS

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Walks

       And I often went looking for my fate yet I only

found the same old beer parlors or the same birds

that flew from tree to tree so they wouldn’t remember;

old men gathered the used matches to perhaps complete

forgetfulness and the poor people in the public baths

were like a multifold folk misfortune, therefore

      I preferred to say goodnight to my aunt although

she was dead (perhaps because of it) or I built a labyrinth

made of gestures begging for help or I would limp like

a gramophone album that still turned in my childhood

years, since in fact many complained for strange noises

although I didn’t care or more so I jumped up from

my disturbed sleep like a new unexpected day or like

      poetry which was an enigma of common words.

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Conniving

     We knew so little of him but let us call him Jacob

for serenity’s sake and at this point let us remember

the great quackery of words or the house appliances

that mysteriously disappear since whoever used them

had the most naïve thoughts;

     like a page has its end and each castaway his lucky

person, each boy has his apple and each crazy man

his basement, every sad person his wall and each

dead his rumble

     but let us stop the count of so many sad events and

let us delve in how the bees establish their colonies

or how revolutions die or why we don’t open our door

to the quiet evening so that we don’t go to exile

for such minor things

     and we lived deviously like the ancient folk singers

who let their beard grow down to the earth so they

didn’t resemble children

     when they sang.

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Goodnight

      Finally, I always dared the temptation of not being

surprised; I read useless geography books in the attic

or for a small reward I helped the local notary

turn to his other side and other times I’d whistle

lethally or I’d sit on a chair for so long that you could

say a crime was, finally, solved

      and if I hadn’t lived stupidly I would had been just

three years old with unpaid milk, which sounded

normal under today’s difficult circumstances;

in fact a lamp is more compassionate than

the whole sky and a ghost more accessible than

the old cricket or a goodnight more historic than

most of historic documents and I don’t give

a damn if others live better.

      Goodnight.

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LUMBERJACK

A dog barked at a distance,

a door creaked on its hinges,

the moon pretended it didn’t notice anything.

The lumberjack killed his dog with his axe

painted his cheeks with the blood and

looked at his reflection in the dark river.

That was the dog that barked.

This was what the moon meant.

Then the axe, like a golden bird, was raised in the air.

A laughter was heard in the forest.

I did it on time, the lumberjack said. He didn’t take

my friend, my dog from me; the lumberjack started

             barking.

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6

Father Thomas, however, was distrusting so he had

his well ground coffee each afternoon  under

          the grapevine

while the bells tolled the evening matins etc etc.

Why should I care for the incomprehensible and

          rude world

I keep a piece of glass and know my punishment

as you solve a puzzle so you can stand in front of

           the mystery

and the big common charnel house where the bones

            of the poor were stored;

all those who suffered silently and anonymously

so God can remember them all together with

             one name.

I woke up a bit late, “stupidities it’s the booze”

I said seeing someone sleeping on the sofa

then I remembered “he must be the forest warden” since

once, in other times I was lovable. Of course, there

was always danger that the other could appear, the one

who was arriving in regular hours asking for his share;

when satiated he’d leave taking along some miserable

secret stories while I was still sweeping the blood

in the old school classroom and Mrs. Marcella,

the supervisor “it’s the wrong time for tears”, she said

to me until I started been bored since whatever we live

simply passes and only later it sinks inside of us. 

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Η μετάφραση μου ποιημάτων Τάσου Λειβαδίτη, τόμος ΙΙ, μπήκε στην πρώτη λίστα των δέκα στα βραβεία Griffin Poetry Awards, 2023// My translation of poems by Tasos Livaditis made the long list of the Griffin Poetry Awards

2023 Longlist Announcement