Acclamations

Acclamations  (1981)

 

 

The Acclamations were inspired by a lively conversation I had with the daughter of a customs official many years ago, during the German occupation.

 

Her name was Kallistheni. She had two brothers: Vlasis and Polydoros. They lived on the opposite block, facing Dyrrachos Street. We met in front of the Gestapo barbed wire, at the Nea Smyrni turn-off.

 

“Why don’t you speak?” I asked her

“What is there to say in all this absence?” she replied. “You’re busy now. You’re mixed up in all sorts of things. You have your regular trips from Athens to Patras.”

“And you are on the road to Calcutta. North-South-East-West,” I say, “have no meaning for us.”

“And music?”

“It was there before before you. It existed with you. And it exists without you. After you. But I am preparing the Acclamations  and what’s going to become of them?

In forty years when they are played I want them to be played for you.

 

But now:

 

I have nothing else to give you

not even to go to jail for you.

My mind is two black wings

to fall and to hover like a hawk

above the barren earth.

And you, I think, do not expect me to give you

anything else.

You took it all. And I think you buried

it deep.

Better that way. Not to see it

      and remember

the great pain I planted

once in those days gone by.

 

Kallistheni would recite a poem to me

and now I think:

 

We used to get drunk on tsipouro 

and rough red wine.

Now they douse us in all sorts of stimulants.

Polydoros died and Vlasis is a minister.

Truly, how could you see me behind

so many tall tales?

How could you hear me through all

the shouting?

 

Perhaps our meeting was an accident.

Just as, for example, two ships meet suddenly on the oceans

and as suddenly disappear again

into the night

of the deep horizon.

I don’t know..........

 

 

*   *   *

 

What’s more, I knew  I would never

be able to erase

the betrayals of others.

 

*    *    *

 

You have a cloud with holes in it

for an ally

a poor useless dry tree

rooted in yourself.

In your soil, without a name.

It cannot uproot itself

without being slaughtered

    by an axe.

 

*    *    *

 

 

Every second I will breathe fire.

If you don’t know how to cry

don’t look for your tears.

 

Sotiris

Somewhere in the blind alley a false door

will be painted.

A door that will open very slowly

after the walls have disappeared.

If they manage to disappear

before the complete asphyxiation.

 

 

*    *    *

 

There in the Circus in Syngrou Avenue

the clown called out:

“Superfluous hours -- superfluous time

paradisical hells

refreshing conflagrations

prudent miracles.” 

 

*    *    *

 

You passed by on the next street

and you knew it all.

The night made a mistake.

It forgot its formal black clothes.

It forgot its false mysteries

and choked on desire.

They found her at dawn

but didn’t recognize her.

Anyway it was all the same.

You were asleep.

 

*    *    *

 

Walking on the hill of Philopappou

Suddenly I think that:

 

When the paper was a tree

then it spoke correctly.

Athens is different.

It is not the Athens we know.

It is some other.

For example, in Athens there are no

cars, supermarkets

worthy fools.

 

There is, let us say, an uphill road

full of warm rain

that finally ends

in a river.

 

I saw you there in 1943, during the Occupation

with its wooden nights

and from then on I search for you in each note.

On Syngrou Street

the churches are hanging

from the peppers.

On the 26th of March the doors

open

for the ACCLAMATIONS to enter.

 

Each Acclamation another girl

each girl another dead boy.

 

What are the ACCLAMATIONS ?

A round disk

just as the nights are round

       on a round earth...

 

We were walking on Euripides Street

and the smell of sardines and kippers 

hit our noses.

 

The Security Police were following us.

You said

“The air is ashamed

The stifling is ashamed

The words are ashamed 

The silence is ashamed...”

 

What could I tell you when I knew that in

thirty-eight days they would execute you

on a chair

with your back to Mt. Hymettus. 

 

You see how much

the void coexists with the void

the hours with the minutes

outside place and time

on the dark ocean.

 

Message in a bottle.

Dishonest game!...

I put it there and I find it...

Only myself I can’t find.

Because its exists nowhere...

Only the Security police know it

and now they are following us.

 

At Patsias’s place, the cellar

in Harileos Trikoupis Street

together with Pavlos

came Petros

and my father

who bought us all cod in garlic sauce.

My mind

was fixed on the park

of Nea Smyrni...

 

And now your house

has become an apartment block

and from the one next door

a baby is crying.

But millions will take comfort

in dirty, guilty embraces.

Petros has been caught.

I’ve been caught too.

 

How can you hear the ACCLAMATIONS

in the prison....

They’ll be searching for me for a lifetime.

They’ll die in a car

accident

of cancer -- of influenza

of unfortunate cowardice

of cowardly misfortune.

They’ll sleep deceived each night.

And I who found you

will not sleep again

I’ll take root in song.

And where will I take all that

song?

If only my friends could hear it

at least, wherever they happen to be

after our snack

at the Patsias’ cellar in 1948.

 

If you wish to know

behind the music

under the music

silence can be heard.

 

And don’t let the fact escape you

that ghosts

make painful jokes

about themselves.

On the surface of the

explosive calm

there is a pin.

 

*    *    *

 

Now Athens is full

of luxurious

aristocratic

distant

pain.

 

With words sticking to the smog.

The streets are full

of superfluous hours

superfluous years

paradisical hells

refreshing conflagrations.

 

Our girls are filled

with fantastic novels

fantastic works of art

neighborhood cinemas

with perfumed loneliness.

 

Our boys play

with obedient miracles

with illegal ravings

at the root of their voices.

 

We don’t play.

They played us.

And from all the playing

we arrived at the zeibekika 

and now at the ballads

and now the symphonic pieces

and we keep on running

to make it on time, because it’s not only

all these who are chasing us:

gestapo -- Security Police - army thugs -

agents of the junta - messiahs - ghosts.

It is you

who laugh and have rotten teeth

but you also have a Saint for an uncle

with a certificate to prove it and his own parish.

 

And everyone reads you

and they all see you

and all speak with your mouth

and see with your eyes

even if you have trachoma.

 

So there are your zeibekika

and your ballads

and bouzoukis and guitars

and flutes

in case somewhere, someday, something happens.

Even though something

will not come out of nothing.

 

*    *    *

 

 

And so you can learn.

Or rather suddenly know.

Know everything.

Know every word.

THE word: unbearable.

THE word: sickness.

THE word: hell and all who still fear

the law of Silence.

THE word: torture

and THE word: sacrilege.

Satanic dance without an end.

Motionless circle.

The iron circle must break.

 

So that words will fly.

Swim. Drown.

So they’ll die.

Until they find you.

Become air.

Become a bubble

and without you being aware of it

they’ll sleep in the palm of your hand.

 

Dissolve and form

another word without any trap

without paper and pencil

without your all-powerful Absence

without the Night that cannot

end

and that will, nevertheless,  end,

overcoming any resistance

without the rivers of tears

without the sacrilegious guilt.

 

One word that will not contain

silence.

So as to learn.

To know it all! Now!

Now that somewhere you are writing

and the pencil gets drunk.

You read and the pages get drunk.

 

You stretch out your hand

and the furniture

secretly shakes.

Without your knowing

that everything is crazy.

You don’t know it.

 

And I am drowning

in all the rivers of the night

Goodnight.