A Familiar Dog
This dog we have known for years – always the same
always with a big bone in his teeth that he doesn’t even eat
his teeth don’t let it go (and how is he to bark?)
unless every night when we sleep while hiding
he gnaws it secretly and digging somewhere – who knows –
he finds a new bone for the next day or unless
he has learned that barking is useless
that he doesn’t protect anybody neither garden nor house
neither fountain nor himself from the moon from time
from the thieves
THEY SHOULD HAVE CARED
I ended up very poor and almost homeless.
This fateful city, Antioch,
ate up all my money;
this fateful city with its expensive life.
But I am young and in excellent health.
Quite fluent in Greek
(I know—I truly know—Plato and Aristotle;
orators, poets, whoever you care to name).
Of military matters I know a little,
and I have friends among the mercenary leaders.
I’m also well connected inside the Administration.
I stayed in Alexandria for six months last year;
I know something about its affairs (and this is useful):
Kakergetis’ aspirations, and his dirty tricks, etcetera.
Therefore I believe I am qualified
and suitable to serve this country,
my beloved homeland, Syria.
In whichever position they place me
I’ll try to be useful to the country. This is my intention.
But if they obstruct me with their schemes—
we know them, the industrious ones; what more is there to say?
If they obstruct me, it is not my fault.
First I will approach Zabinas,
and if that moron doesn’t appreciate me,
I will go to his opponent, Grypos.
And if that idiot doesn’t appoint me,
I’ll go straight to Hyrkanos.
In any case one of the three will want me.
And my conscience is clear,
for not caring which one I choose:
All three harm Syria equally.
But, a ruined man now, is it my fault?
I, the unfortunate, am just trying to patch it up.
The mighty Gods should have cared
enough to have created a fourth, a good person.
Gladly I would have gone to him.
POEM BY ELENI MARINAKIS
JUGGLER
Hard to fly with poetry
and I didn’t spread
my wings.
I kept fallen leaves
and small rabbits in my living room.
The lonely band played
during the anniversaries
I opened my eyes timidly
fields of olive groves shaded my hat
a swing committed me to the void.
Thus, I grew up with crumbs
I earned my share of food
working the trapeze.
Since then I’m scared of the straight lines
the end of the horizon
the quick fading of the white.
Now I crouch under bridges
of dried up rivers
just to have
my own nothing
LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER
No, don’t stay my friend. I don’t mean the great
tempests which will pound the windows with
their fists and will claim your surrender; It isn’t
so hard at that time, it’s the fear and resistance
even stubbornness. I talk of the other, the crystal
nights of spring or summer, when you discern
the light clearly chiming in its lucidity, when
the glass ships sail with their lights under
the inexplicable sobs of the stars.
When the imperceptible blow of an insect feather
on your forehead is an irreversible command
to fuse yourself with someone else, in someone
else and there’s no postponement under the exquisite
moonlight that constitutes an integral postponement.
For this, I tell you, it’s difficult to mend your socks
alone, difficult to mend one of your hands with
the other, one of your eyes with the other, one clock
tick with the other, the sound of one wave with
the sound of the another wave.
Newspaper
He opened the newspaper
under the light of the kitchen
he seek to brighten the news
of last night’s muggings,
break ins, murders.
After he took a deep breath
knowing he contributed
in beautifying the world
of this ugly modern city
he put the coffee pot on
as if he had to go to war again
and needed his morning fix
Days Of April `43
Trumpets, trams, deep echoes, screeching brakes
chloroform his mind as you count
as you endure and then you vanish
in the numbness and the mercy of a surgeon
He walks carefully in the streets, so that he won’t slip
on melon rinds that the careless Arabs throw
or the refugee-politicos and the gang
laying in watch will he step on it? Will he not?
Like when you pluck a daisy he walks on
swinging a huge bunch of useless keys the dry light-blue remembers
faded advertisements of the Greek Coastal Navigation
windows locked shut over beloved faces
or the little clear water at the roots of a plane tree
He walks going to his work as
a thousand hungry dogs rip his pants
and strip him naked
He walks, staggering, pointed at by fingers
and a dense wind brings around
garbage, dung, stench, and curses
Long Listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards
Manolis Aligizakis 