Poem by Manolis Aligizakis
DATE
Α blind date
is set for you by fate
to meet your Death
this morning
for this you smile
and tighten your lips
in agony
Bon voyage!
Neo-Hellene Poets, an Anthology of Modern Greek Poetry
Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume IV
ORESTES (Excerpt)
Sacrifices, they said, heroism — and for what change?
Years after years; perhaps we have come for this
little discovery of the great miracle that isn’t called
small or great, nor murder or sin.
Everything is Eros — magic and dazzle (as mother
used to say) when the big, fleshy leaves of the night
touch our foreheads and the fruit that falls is a certain,
undelivered message, like the circle, the triangle or
the rhombus. I think of a saw that rusts in a deserted
carpentry and the numbers of houses move away
to the horizon — 3, 7, 9, the innumerable number.
Listen. She stopped.
Ithaca Series, Poem # 621
Chun Woo, Korea
A Half Moon
Since when are you hanging there, half moon,
drifting palely in the sky?
The wind rises, the nightfall brings a chill,
and the edge of the white-water glitters in the glow of the evening.
Above the dark, grassless plain,
the cold fog rises.
The winter is far advanced,
and sorrow weighs me down.
Also in the heart of the beloved who leaves,
love and youth turned to age disappears.
At the dark branches of the wild bramble,
withered petals glimmer in the faint evening light.
Kim So-wôl, Korea (1902 – 1934)
Translation: Jaihiun J. Kim – Germain Droogenbroodt – Stanley Barkan
ΜΙΣΟΦΕΓΓΑΡΟ
Πόσο καιρό κρέμεσαι εκεί στον ουρανό
μισοφέγγαρο νωχελικά αργοπερνώντας;
Σηκώνεται ο αγέρας κι η ψύχρα της νύχτας σε παγώνει
άκρες νερού που λάμπουν μεσα στην εσπέρα
πάνω απ’ τον ολόξερο κάμπο
η ομίχλη αιωρείται
μες την καρδιά του χειμώνα
η λύπη με παιδεύει
και στην καρδιά που φεύγει της αγαπημένης
νειότης αγάπη που περνά και χάνεται
στα σκοτεινά κλαδιά αγριολυγιάς
και λάμπουν φύλλα πέταλα μέσα στο φως εσπέρας
Μετάφραση Μανώλη Αλυγιζάκη//translated by Manolis Aligizakis
Neo-Hellene Poets, an Anthology of Modern Greek Poetry
Poem by Manolis Aligizakis
WHAT IF
If you didn’t get to the train station
at that exact time you wouldn’t
have met him you wouldn’t have
started dating you wouldn’t have
married you wouldn’t have
the twins graduating this year and
where would you be now
should you had taken the next train?
Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume IV
ORESTES (excerpt)
I too want to see father’s murder under the soothing
generality of death, to forget of him in the wholeness
of death that awaits us too. This night has taught me
the innocence of all the usurpers. We’re all usurpers
of something — of the people, the throne, of Eros or
even of death. My sister the usurper of my only life
and I of yours.
My sweet man, with such patience, you share
the foolish events of others. Yet my hand is yours,
take it, usurp it too — yours, it is yours for this reason;
take it, squeeze it; you expect it to be free of punishments,
retaliations, memories, free of all — I want it free too,
that it’ll only belong to me so that I’ll give it to you
completely. Forgive me this secret loneliness and sharing,
you know that it splits me in two. What a beautiful night.
Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume III
FLOOR PLAN
5
Resistance
With the playing of the eyelid
the small finger of the grass
with silence, with a word
with a walk or motionlessness
behind the train window
the myopic man’s glasses
the cop’s cigarette
the paper under the door
the shoe, cough, signal
even with the star
that star next to the chimney
how do they see and walk
in such a night?
Neo-Hellene Poets, an Anthology of Modern Greek Poetry
Poem 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
whispering softly
yes, yes
Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume IV
ORESTES (excerpt)
She retains her anger in the intensity of her voice —
(if she would lose that voice what of her would had
remained?) I believe she’s afraid of the fulfillment of
punishment, as if she wouldn’t have anything left. She
has never heard the secret rustle of brushwood when a
lissome animal passes just out of the windows, during
the supper; she has never seen the rope-ladder, left, for
no apparent reason, on the high, bare wall on a holiday;
she never paid attention to that, for no apparent reason;
she has never paid attention to the hairy top of corn
scratching the sole of the smallest cloud, or the shape
of a water pitcher under the starry sky, or a sickle
left by itself next to the spring, at noon, or the shadow
of the loom in the closed room, when they sprinkle
sulfur on the grapevine plants and the voices of farmers
are heard in the plain, while a sparrow, all alone in the
world, eating the little flies, seeds, some crumbs in
the yard, tries to spell its freedom. She has seen
nothing.
Constantine Cavafy – Poems
TROJANS
Our efforts are like those of the unfortunate;
like the efforts of the Trojans.
We succeed a bit; we regain
our confidence; and we start feeling
brave and having high hopes.
But always something comes up and stops us.
Achilles appears in front of us in the trench
and with loud shouts frightens us back.—
Our efforts are like those of the Trojans.
We think that with resolution and boldness
we can reverse the downhill course of fate,
and we stand outside ready to fight.
But when the great crisis comes,
our boldness and resolution vanish;
our soul is shaken, paralyzed;
and we run around the walls
trying to save ourselves by running away.
And yet our fall is certain. High up,
on the walls, the dirge has already started
mourning memories and auras of our days.
Priam and Hecuba weep bitterly for us.
Neo-Hellene Poets, an Anthology of Modern Greek Poetry
Poem by Manolis Aligizakis
TENDERNESS
Your fingers
tenderly entangled
with mine
melodious harmony
of ten stars
whispering
I love you
Manolis Aligizakis 