We adored this Earth so, my Lord
with a love that I am afraid what is waiting us as we depart
is to find our minds thinking only of her
always running back to our own village
Ποιος είναι αυτός που κρύβεται πίσω απ’ τις βραγιές
κι ωστόσο ακούγονται τα βήματά του;
Το νιώθω ότι το κάνει επίτηδες
Τ’ ακούω ολοένα και πιο δυνατά αυτά τα βήματα,
που έρχονται κι έρχονται ως κοντά μου,
κι απάνω που στρέφω να τους μιλήσω μ’ ευγένεια
τα παίρνει και χάνονται το λαμπυρίζον φως,
Στο στόχαστρο του βομβαρδιστικού
χώρα που πρέπει ν’ αλλάξει ηγεσία
αποτυχημένη κυβέρνηση
ν’ αντικατασταθεί
βόμβες και τηλεκατευθυνόμενα βλήματα
θάνατος ακρίβειας σ’ εφαρμογή
εταιρεία αμυντικού εξοπλισμού
σ’ επιφυλακή
Κάποια καμπάνα
από το μακρινό παρελθόν
χτυπάει ακόμα αδύναμα στ’ αυτιά μου.
Η έρημη εκκλησιά
όπου το μισοτελειωμένο κερί
αγνό και μυρωδάτο
Δεν θα το δουν τα μάτια μου
εκείνο το νησί. Δεν πρόλαβα…
Με πρόφτασε ο καιρός που χάλασε,
μ΄ εμπόδισε η φουρτούνα που έπιασε.
«Απαγορεύεται ο απόπλους».
Κι αυτή η κακοκαιρία φαίνεται
πως θα κρατάει για πάντα.
Απαγορεύεται η Φολέγανδρος για μένα,
ακόμα κι αν το επιτρέψει η μπουνάτσα
να αμολήσουν τα καράβια.
Ο νέος που πρόσμενες να `ρθει
δεν ήρθε μήτε απόψε.
Μα τί θα του `λεγες; Γιατί;
Άσε τα μάταιο να χαθή.
The young man you expected
hasn’t come tonight.
What would you tell him? Why?
Let the futile vanish
cut the unfortunate sprout.
Είμαι ηθοποιός, κατά βάθος πολιτικός,
στο καμαρίνι λύνω σταυρόλεξο, ψάχνω
πράσινα άλογα, χαζεύω στην τηλεόραση.
Ένας σπουργίτης ραμφίζει το τζάμι μου
να δω τις ειδήσεις: ένα παιδάκι ξαγρυπνά
μπρος στα πτώματα των γονιών του, μετά
το ανεβάζουν σε βάρκα, προσφυγόπουλο
το βγάζει η θάλασσα στην άμμο για αιώνιο ύπνο,
στην τσεπούλα του ένα τετράδιο όπου έγραψε:
‘Θα σας καταγγείλω όλους στον Θεούλη μου…’
He stood at the edge of the old castle’s parapet
below it the hungry abyss and
even lower the gleaming sea
ready to splash its first wave
onto the yellow soft sandy beach
when he raised his arm
as if taking an oath
as if promising to come back
at another time when we’d need
one to stand against
the greed and gluttony of the few
who comfortable and fat
dwelled in their satiation.
He had no time – how could he listen? Fighting for his bread
he didn’t see that the wheat ear grew tickling the sun’s ear
he didn’t see the blond mustache of summer
he didn’t see that he also grew.
Time will come when things will change
remember this, Maria
do you remember that game during the intermission
when we run holding the baton
—don’t look at me — don’t cry. You are the hope
listen, time will come
when children will select their parents
they won’t be born at random
Στην προκυμαία
Σάββατο δείλι, γύρω στην έξι
στο δρόμο ούτε ψυχή, και έχει βρέξει.
Φουρτούνα η θάλασσα, αγριεμένο κύμα,
καράβια στέλνουνε κινδύνου σήμα…
[tabgroup] [tab title=”English”] Breeze laughed amid his limping footsteps nature’s unforgiving mistake struggled out of the sea eyes full of…
ΤΟ ΠΟΥΛΙ ΜΕ ΤΙΣ ΑΛΗΘΕΙΕΣ Η λήθη σκέπασε το παρελθόν, το άγνωστο πολιορκεί το σπίτι φαντάσματα πραγμάτων που αγαπήσαμε και…
Ὁδηγητής τῶν ἑφτά βοδιῶν
πού λειβαδεύουν στό βιλαέτι τῆς ἔγνοιας σου
ἀθροίζεις τόν ἕωλο αἰῶνα.
Ἔχτισες τά σύνορα τοῦ ἀγῶνα σου
μέ τέσσερες σταγόνες παγωμένου ἱδρῶτα
σέ σχῆμα λάβαρου σταυροφόρων.
Ὦ Ἀλκάλουροψ,
πλοηγέ τοῦ γέλιου τῶν παιδιῶν
καί ἀλφαβητάρι τῶν γερόντων.
Aliki Beach in autumn hues,
just sandy footprints left by you
mystically adored, a dream
in colours rare and supreme.
On Sunday wintertime set in.
Your hands held cloudy skies within.
We are with you present in mind,
our mortal selves, though, left behind.
The snow that falls outside!
a God
like the ice-vendor of death
with eyes
bloodshot from fever
A little out from Athens there is
the Hotel “HOPE”. Each night
in this Hotel, at midnight,
two ghosts cry. This bad luck
drives the hotel manager to despair,
for as you might appreciate
these goings-on drive customers away
Carnation wilted
red colored hope painted
by the sun’s endless caress
two soup bowls empty
two wine glasses empty
and the cicadas’ song
a summer conflagration
When rain struck the window with one of its fingers
the window opened inward. Deep inside
an unknown person, a sound – your voice?
Your voice distrusted your ear. The next day
the sun went down the fields, like a descent of farmers
with scythes and pitchforks. You too went out to the street
Sometimes past midnight the rhythmic hooves of horses
are heard from down the road of a delayed carriage as if
returning
from a mourning matinee of some rundown neighborhood
theater
with its plaster fallen off the ceiling, with the peeling walls
with a huge discolored red curtain drawn
that has shrunk from so many washings and in the gap
it leaves under it
you could see the bare feet of the stage manager or the
electrician
who perhaps rolls up a paper forest to turn off the lights.
He sat on the stool by the front yard, his hands so clumsy, they had
already overtaken us “someday they will demolish the house”, he says
to me, and they’ll discover it”
and every so often at the far end of the room someone wrapped around
him a bed-sheet, it was the time he escaped, until the bed-sheet fell
empty on the floor and we had a friend forever,
Sometimes, that special hour, I think of narrating all the details:
how, for example, this incurable disease started on the opposite wall
or about that woman in the park, whose body was nailed on the bench,
and I say this without exaggeration, the nails protruded from her cloths
like small buttons, while her purse with her identity card floated down…
Suddenly on an autumn day he left, on the table he left a letter
“don’t send me away” it read and spoke of a deep inhabitable
emotion; in the house all the lights were turned on that I wouldn’t
understand, that perhaps, he had never come, while next to the letter
he had left the mystery of his death, already covered by cobwebs…
Know ye the land of the cedar and vine?
Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine,
Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppressed with perfume,
Wax faint o’er the gardens of Gul in her bloom;
Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit,
And the voice of the nightingale never is mute;
Then the other one came, he carried an old ravished valise,
in which he hid all the ghosts of his life, that they never needed
chase after him,
we were in the same stuffy room and the large animal sawn
on the carpet was already biting our knees,
“mother”, I asked at some-time, “where can we find some water for
my horse?”, “but I don’t see any horse”, “you too, mother!”,
The foreigner chatted with the woman in a low tone, of course,
the woman was dead and he stared at his destiny, that useless outline
the dead leave on the chair,
birds struck the ceiling and fell into the dirty sink where all
the stories ended, embalmed old men sat behind the window glass
the stoa was dark, the stores wet where they sold tripods for caskets
and wreaths for glory we had once dreamed off,
Night fell and in the old house only the shadows remained, “aunt
Eudokia”, I said to her, “be serious, you are dead now”
but she retained the same awkward smile, like back then when she hid
something which I wasn’t allowed to know as yet
the foreigner narrated stories of signs and wonders, ancient old
murders, he also talked about a fly on the child’s glass and that he burnt
Ideal and beloved voices
of the dead or those who
for us are lost like the dead.
At times they talk in our dreams;
at times our minds hear them when in thought.
The orchard with its fountains in the rain
you will see only from behind the fogged up glass
of the lower window. Your room
will be lit by the fireplace flames
and sometimes, the distant lightning will reveal
the wrinkles on your face, my old Friend.
We didn’t know them
deep inside it was hope that said
we had met them in early childhood.
Perhaps we had seen them twice and then they went to the ships
cargoes of coal, cargoes of crops and our friends
vanished beyond the ocean forever.
Daybreak finds us beside the tired lamp
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