Tag: greek-poetry

Tasos Livaditis – Selected Poems

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The Unexpected
in Tasos Livaditis’ Poetry


Tasos Livaditis was a man and a poet who knew how to be likable. Not only because he was handsome both in his youth and later on in his senior years, not because he was the center of attention in various gatherings of his days, but also because of his poetry.
But why was it so?
His creative life could be easily divided into three periods, first being the period of beliefs, second the period of the crisis and third the period of recovery and in all three periods Tasos Livaditis was a very likable man to everyone he met, dealt with, associated with, made friends with, shared his hours in exile with. And Livaditis was a likeable man also because of his goals. During the first period, his goal was the struggle, something that spoke on behalf of everyone and also talked of a better future. In the second period, he tried to conceal the crisis he faced and kept away from his poetry by turning his attention to the people around him. During the third period of his creative life, his most important, if you like, he’s the poet everyone liked because of his ability to select the unexpected. Evident in the first book of this period, when he dealt with the issue of defeat, he encountered:
He kneeled and laid his forehead on the floor. It was
a difficult time. When he got up, his embarrassed face
that we all knew well had stayed there on the planks like
a useless inverted helmet.
The same man returned home without face —
like God
That like God and the face on the planks are the unexpected images that put this poet apart from others. Tasos Livaditis could minimize his importance, to lessen the size of his stature, to present himself as haunted, as prey, as one who is punished; he never liked the pompous and unnecessary verbalisms:

For years, I’ve prepared myself for that big moment
the miracle of the century, on the other hand
you must admit I’m one of a kind in my field.
But, God, what happened, who betrayed me, where
they find all the proof? The procedure was quick.
The district attorney, to the point, “Are you him?”
he asked me, “him,” I answered
is there any worse charge?
~ Kostas Kouloufakos

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562930

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763831

Constantine Cavafy

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If and Since He Had Died
“Where did he retire? Where did the Sage disappear to?
After his countless miracles,
and the fame of his teaching
that spread over so many nations
he suddenly hid, and no one learned
with certainty what happened to him
(nor has anyone ever seen his grave).
Some said that he died in Ephesus.
But Damis didn’t record it; nothing was written
by Damis about the death of Apollonios.
Others said that he vanished in Lindos.
Or perhaps the story
that he ascended in Crete is true,
at the sacred temple of Dictynna.
However, we have his exquisite,
supernatural appearance
to a young student in Tyana.
Perhaps the time has not come for him to return
and appear to the world again,
or perhaps he is roaming among us
incognito. But he will reappear
as he was, teaching the right things, and then of course
he will reestablish the worship of our gods,
and our refined Hellenic ceremonies.”
This was the way he mused in his poor house,
one of a few pagans,
one of the very few who remained
after reading Philostratos’
On Apollonios of Tyana—
In any case, an insignificant
and timid man, on the surface
he played the Christian, and he, too, went to church.
It was the era when in utmost piety
the king who reigned was the aged Ioustinos,
and Alexandria, a god-fearing city,
abhorred the miserable idolaters. On the Ship
Certainly, this small sketch,
in pencil resembles him.
Done rather fast, on the deck of the ship,
one enchanting afternoon.
The Ionian Pelagos all around us.
It resembles him. However, I recall him as handsome.
He was sensitive to the point of suffering,
and this lit his expression.
He appears even handsome to me
now that my soul recalls him out of Time.
Out of Time. All these things are old,
the drawing, the ship, and the afternoon.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562856

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763823

Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume II

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A Little Sleep
The distant voice of the lottery vendor. The swaying of the tree.
A canteen steadied in the sand.
The west is burning. A purple reflection over the seashore.
The few houses painted crimson, silence and sundown.
You have a summer handkerchief in your pocket,
a sorrow you left behind on the ledge
like the ripped shoe of the spring that was left on
the rock
when the last group grabbed three meters of sea
and left stooping among the tents of the wind.
How fast the sun goes down in your eyes;
your coat is already smelling of moist,
you put your hands in your gloves like the trees
get in the clouds.
Where the tempest stops your glance is re-ignited
where the sky ends your song and your whole face
are reborn.
There is a yellow star in your silence
like a small daisy on the side table of the sick man
a little warmth on every yellow leaf that turns
the pages of time backward.
It is enough that you know. The other communication
doesn’t end at midnight.
The line is continued from deep inside and from afar
with a few stops, interruptions, accidents,
it continues
and autumn finds shelter on the railings of the station
or the fence wall of the Orphanage,
it listens to the call for silence on the damp roofs and
to the gramophone of the seashore bar,
that the moon turns,
a scratched vinyl, a very old tango. No one dances.
But you, turning the moon to its other side,
beyond midnight, further from the ledge,
you listen to the great music while you saunter
in the harbour with the twelve boat masts
like a speechless restaurant server who cleans
the autumnal tables
folding carefully the napkins of the night,
gathering the stack of plates with the leftover
fish bones.
The sea and the songs continue.
All these that the locked people left outside
belong to us:
the hurrah of the wind in the darkened rooms,
the music that descends in big waves and hits
the window shutters,
the silence that opens its purse and looks at itself
in her square little mirror,
and the woman who wraps herself with the army blanket
and sleeps next to her bag
and you too, as you light your cigarette with a star
over the calm plain of your soul
like the guard who stays vigil over the sleeping soldiers
and thinks of his woman
of the sea
the city with the flags
the trumpets
the sun-dust and the glory of men.
And next to you, you know it,
this big smile
like the circular alarm clock next to the asleep worker.
It’s time to sleep a little. Don’t be afraid.
The clock is properly wound up. It’ll get you up on time
with the bucket of dawn that draws water from the well,
with the crawl of a proclamation that noiselessly sheds
light under the door of your silence. Be assured.
It’ll wake you up.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562968

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851M9LTV