POINTLESS EXIT
The house was empty, full of expectation. He couldn’t
endure it; he closed the door behind him and went
to the street.
The door got unhinged and followed him. He could hear,
quite clearly, his door following him in the street, which
was quite flooded by lights, and he sensed the vertical
loneliness of the door on his back, and, behind the door,
he felt the empty house and its expectation. Then he
suddenly
turned and letting his face lean against the door he
started crying.
Γιατρός
Ωχροί άντρες μας ακολούθησαν, ανεξήγητη αφέλεια,
αφού ούτε καν μπορούσαμε να βρούμε το δρόμο μας
δίχως τις οδηγίες Του. Η συγνώμη δεν είχε ακόμα εφευρεθεί
απ’ τους φανατικούς που κρατούσαν δαυλούς αναμμένους
κι όλοι μας νοιώσαμε πως είχαμε χαθεί στην προσπάθεια
να εξηγήσουμε το ανεξήγητο και να εντοπίσουμε ξανά
το για πάντα χαμένο όταν φτάσαμε στο νοσοκομείο
που βρήκαμε το γιατρό πάνω από ένα τραυματισμένο στρατιώτη.
Παρ’ όλο που ο χάρτης του ξεκάθαρα έδειχνε πως δεν υπήρχε
πια ελπίδα την τελευταία μάχη είχε σχεδόν χάσει, παρατηρήσαμε
την προσοχή του γιατρού στην κάθε λεπτομέρεια όταν
ο οδηγός μας έκλεισε τα μάτια του τραυματισμένου
στρατιώτη, έσφιξε το χέρι του γιατρού σαν ν’ απορροφούσε
όλο του τον πυρετό κι αφού εκράτησε ενός λεπτού σιγή του
είπε: ‘Εσύ είσαι γένος και συγγένειά μου, υπάρχω μέσα σου
κι εσύ μες την καρδιά μου σε θρόνο κάθεσαι σαν βασιλιάς’.
Doctor
Pale men followed us, inexplicable stupidity, as
we were incapable of finding our own way without
a guide; mercy wasn’t invented yet fanatics
held torches and half lit icons and we all felt lost
in our quest to render the inexplicable explained
then we arrived at the hospital and found a doctor
leaning over an injured soldier. Although the injured
soldier’s chart clearly showed there was no hope, he had
already lost his last battle, we observed the attention
of the doctor to every possible detail of the stats when
our leader closed the dead soldier’s eyes, shook
the doctor’s hand as if taking in Him all the doctor’s fever
and He said: ‘you are my brethren and kin, I dwell
in you and you sit in my heart like a king on his throne.’
LONG LISTED FOR THE 2023 GRIFFIN POETRY AWARDS
The Garden at Dusk
He noticed the garden through the back door railings;
The gardener, on a ladder, was gathering fruit;
further away a girl with a basket had her eyes closed
and a book on her knees. At the far end the houses
looked rosy in the dusk. Only the kitchen window was
lighted. Someone from there called the girl. She got up.
The gardener felt so alone again, guilty, furtively happy,
since he had passed the whole garden under his arm
like a basket, hanging onto that internal voice that
deepened the whole evening; a basket full of leaves
and fruit and the small golden knife among them.
ON STAGE
3
What were you looking for? You look like a stammer.
You had just gotten up
leaving the bed sheets to freeze
and the avenging baths.
Drops of water flowed on your shoulders
on your belly
your feet bare on the soil
on the cut grass.
Those, other three
the faces of the daring Hecate.
They tried to take you with them.
Your eyes, two tragic conches
and you had on the nipples of your breasts
two small purple pebbles—
things of the stage,
I don’t know.
Those three bellowed
you stood nailed to the ground,
their gesturing pierced the air.
Servants brought them knives;
you stood nailed to the ground,
a cypress.
They pulled the knives from the sheaths
and aimed for a place to stab you.
Then and only then you cried:
‘Let whoever wants to come and sleep with me,
am I not the sea?’
LONG LISTED FOR THE 2023 GRIFFIN POETRY AWARDS
Resurrection
He looks again observes discerns
through a distance that has no meaning at all
through endurance that doesn’t humiliate anymore
the moth balls in the paper bag
the dry grape leaves in the leaky pail
the bicycle on the opposite sidewalk.
Suddenly
he hears the knock behind the wall
that same one coded totally alone
the deeper knock. He feels like an innocent
who forgot the dead.
At night he doesn’t
use earplugs anymore – he’s left them
in the drawer along with his medals
and with his last most unsuccessful mask.
Only he doesn’t know this is the last one
Old Man
He walks his dog
other side of the street
fierce wind exhausts itself
among tree branches, dancing leaves
when old man suddenly stops
focusing eyes on the ground
he slowly leans
over cement sidewalk
even more slowly he gets up
straightening aching back
holding by it stem a dry maple leaf
which he brings close to
his eyes and observes carefully
turning it to the other side
examines in detail
the curled ribs of the leaf
its hunched body
bereft of flexibility
just like his
VI
Nights with their tightly shut doors,
in the safety of a dirty bed
in a dream that erases the footsteps
that trample darkness,
tired dream, silent, only with sperm, with saliva
spasmodically shutting the cracks of screams
momentarily,
and again in the lustful warmth of nakedness.
Days with the totally hidden rust of tears
in the dark brand new suits,
days trapped in the personally won bread
and then, after the end of the celebration,
the harbor master supervises the carrying of its bones;
and from good morning to good morning, from
one silence to another,
the fear —
smoking half a cigarette between two cadavers.
Where they deny me they’ll deny me again,
forgotten, ignored, a burdensome ancient
acquaintance,
a mask ravaged by horror and frost
like change in front of the fear of change
where they sent me away and spat on me
where they smiled at me and then they pretended
the future smokestacks, while all along, it was like
Saturday evenings with their fiancé, and
I was left alone with extended hand amid
the deserted autumns with
only the wind that applied salt deep in the wounds
that kisses opened,
there where we felt hungry together and now
they don’t share their hunger with me
where we ate together and now they don’t
even give me a piece of bread or coal
where we walked together and they now deny me
each step and stone
where we slept and now they deny me sleep
and hope
where we lived and now they deny me the door
of their houses
where we lived and now they deny me the certainty
and patience
there is where I shall go.
Because something that doesn’t vanish
exists in everyone
something exists in everyone that life holds
in its two hands tightly.
Οι “Φίλοι του Αθανασάκειου Αρχαιολογικού Μουσείου Βόλου και Αρχαιολογικών Χώρων Μαγνησίας & Βορείων Σποράδων” συνεχίζουν την πολιτιστική τους δράση, παρά το γεγονός ότι η πανδημία του Covid-19 τους ανάγκασε να διακόψουν προσωρινά τις προγραμματισμένες και εξαιρετικά επιτυχημένες δωρεάν ξεναγήσεις σε μουσεία και αρχαιολογικούς χώρους της Μαγνησίας.View original post 467 more words
Manolis Aligizakis 