1973

In the Tavern

In the tavern you sit now without speaking

the longing falls drop by drop in your heart

you remember when you flew on broad wings

now everyone kicks your heart about.

 

Take your soul out again to stroll through the neighborhoods

let your life be filled with sweet voices and lilacs.

 

You were handsome as you passed through the neighborhoods

at the windows a thousand hearts quietly melted

in your heart you carried all hearts

in your dreams the nightingales built their nests.

 

1973

Fickle Bird

You came in my dream

fickle bird;

in the darkness,

East.

 

I held out my hand to you

I can’t you told me

I want to fly

to another sky.

 

The years passed

you left too

darkness all around me

and soft rain.

 

You don’t value

my love

eagerly you fly 

to the high balconies.

 

You thrust a knife

into my heart

but my love

always seeks you.

 

Look into my eyes

kiss me sweet

and let your heart

sing to me.

 

They called you East

and angels nurtured you.

 

1973

In the East

In the East, in the East

in the East, it sings so sweetly

Ah! The little nightingale

sings so sweetly.

 

And it tells me, it tells me

with bitter sorrow

it tells me, it tells me

a secret.

 

In the East, in the East

a dark boy

cannot cry

he just keeps singing.

 

In the East, in the East

in the East, the son of Theodoris

opens my door

and it is Sunday.

 

In the East, in the East

in the East say a prayer,

the swallow has come to the courtyard.

 

1973

Fires, Fires

Fires fires deep in the heart

you suffer you suffer my darling son

Fires fires because you know how to speak

you suffer you suffer my brave boy.

 

They took you on a journey,

the boat sank;

they took you on the oceans

and the sea dried up.

 

You were sun, you were day

you were sweet dawn

now fear has shaded them

and white has turned black.

 

The birds ask me

what to see and what to say;

only you, my son, know

the pain of my heart.

 

1973

Ten Brave Lads

Ten brave lads from Athens took a boat to sea

they headed for sunny parts, boat at sea.

 

They set out at dawn, boat at sea

they sailed the calm waters.

 

Black eyes, black brows, and on their lips, boat at sea

and on the lips, flowers, boat at sea.

 

Thunder surrounds them now and a sword, boat at sea

and a sword mows them down, boat at sea.

 

All ten used to sing and laugh, boat at sea

they were ten fine lads, boat at sea.

 

But now the tanks surround them and a cannon, boat at sea

and a cannon mows them down, boat at sea.

 

1973

Mountains, I Bid You Farewell

Mountains, mountains, I bid you farewell

I’m going far away

on a great journey

without departure, without return.

Mountains, mountains, I bid you farewell

I’m going far away.

 

I didn’t balk, I didn’t bend

and I disdained life.

 

Only one heart I hurt

only one heart

just one will feel

the hard pain of parting

only one heart I hurt

only one heart.

 

I didn’t balk, I didn’t bend

and I disdained life.

 

1973

Dead Season

i

The great avenue,  the great avenue

full of well-fed people was shining

on the right the buses, on the left, the pedestrians 

the gutters in their turn waiting for spit

and the pee of moribund dogs

the moribund pedestrians buying death

ice-creams pumpkin seeds condoms

right there under the sign

“Shoe Shop”

I stopped suddenly to look

or rather without looking at anything in particular

maybe looking inside myself

and not finding anything

nothing at all

not lights nor shop windows nor sales

not even gutters

I thought about the great mistake

the great mistake is that I thought

the great avenue the great avenue

the bus the dogs

and the moribund.

 

ii.

 

Our age is maimed * it began proud as a peacock

with flags and drums

it breathed to death * it scattered jasmine and honey

it caressed delighted intoxicated

crowds of former slaves * now prisoners

it deceived.

 

 

iii

 

The other person I was, I became again

the moment when I met you

when I believed that I met you

while in reality I was living the dream

of a Cyclops

in love.

 

 

iv

 

You didn’t believe me * and I find that quite natural

because I know that my voice * disappears

on large horizons

in dark rooms  *  and in mirrors

and that saxophone

you strangled

looking over my shoulder * my forgotten life

like some garment  * beside the red boat

of July.

 

 

v

 

The flags the flags who’s holding the flags

who’s holding the flags

the banners the cherubim

the many-colored placards

with the passwords and the keywords

the hot air words?

They move on deep into the crowds

into the crowds who are suffering too

they retreat rejoice shout

explode.

And from the thousands of conflagrations

conflagrations

nuclei

cloudbursts

history is remade

and out comes our familiar fellow

the familiar fellow

Mr Papadopoulos

the one we all know

and nobody expected.

 

So much wisdom so much wisdom we had

that we didn’t see

we didn’t see

--maybe we still don’t see--

our most precious creation

what cost us so dearly

it cost us so dearly

dearly and conclusively.

 

 

 

vi.

 

To learn to wait

and to wait

always learning

and always waiting

to hope

and always hoping

to wait

learning

bitterness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

vii

 

 

But when in the night the darkness recoils

wounded by the flash of distant lighting

in my lost life, lost in crowds and flashes

came a distant light with the power of the end

to signal the beginning of my life that died and lived again

always ready for the great deaths that lead us steadfastly

to the bed where all things end and all begin.

 

 

*    *    *

 

 

And so I suddenly the amazing vision again

the beautiful procession which was nothing other than tongues of fire

a fire that burned and was rekindled from itself

and went on,  proud and meaningful

always against the wind of the stars

that whirled in the primal chaos

and sank into the crucible of the great night

that was my own soul.

 

 

*       *     *

 

How could I remain indifferent to this flaming crash

made up of my elements, elements of dream and anticipation

I was the crucible and the astral wind

I was the crash a little before the crash

and the fire and the march and the absence and the void

so that in the end I was nothing

and yet a glorious nothing

a nothing much more glorious than a thousand deaths united

almighty and splendid

while they stamp with their bloody seals

the blue vulva of life ever ready

to accept the spear of the sun which is my other self.

 

 

*     *     *

 

I saw nothing, I learned nothing, I forgot nothing

from all the nothing I now make my new face

that, too, will be a new nothing but worthy

like the bread they throw to the dogs of the highways

a moment before they smash into the wheels

and they’ll stay on their backs, stretched flat 

after they writhe for a while but that is meaningless

since the bread became blood I became blood

and the wheels and the earth  dry me, and the wind

of the huge trucks that drive steadily on paying no attention

loaded with deception and bodies, the indifferent passers-by

of our dead age.

 

Finally I saw you

it was always you first and last.

You were death precisely in order to erase everything

and so the alpha and beta could be written again

but with a new meaning, unheard of, unknown and threatening

which will finally call into question all that we have seen and not seen

whatever we have learned and above all whatever we have forgotten forever

so much so deeply and so bitterly that our memory has become the only

the memory of our mountains covered in thyme and lentisk

nests of snakes with ashy spots on green scales

that look so much like unwritten words full of dark significance

ready to spell out the meaning of love yet incomprehensible

colorless scentless invisible and moving.

 

 

*    *    *

 

You came and yet you were the same

as you would be if you were not you

exactly as you were then when I met you

and when I didn’t meet you

and I will never meet you

because I know you because I knew you and forgot you forever

so you would stay in my memory forever

shining absence and pain.

And all that became a great wound

big as a red plain

with earth of hard blood-red clay

with scant vegetation tormented by the great west wind

because the wind of the great west

that steadily murders the suns and the innocents

those who, like me, remained with their eyes wide open

bewitched by the azure in the red and in the orange

waiting in vain for the colors to speak

or to sing and be silent forever

creating the Symphony of Silence

with melodies made of silence

rhythms and harmonies from silence and tearful five-stringed instruments.

 

 

*    *   *

 

And then on the plain of my bloody sound

scorched on a thousand bulls

came the plough which has the shape of your absence

and passes and re-passes,  tears me apart and casts me down

to the last extreme of feeling and not feeling

so that everything changes and the vegetation becomes one with the earth

so as to receive the seed of the first tree

the tree that will bear the first fruit

and nourish the first person

and the first knowledge.

They call you glory.

 

And perhaps you will never know what you  always knew

precisely because you knew it before its beginning

and you will know it after its end

and so on forever and forever.

 

 

Buenos Aires, 1973.

 

 

1976

He Was Alone

He was alone in the crowd

he was alone in the cell;

Late, you sang for him, too late

too late, too late.

 

He doesn’t hear your voice

your love is dead to him

your words are dead, your sobs;

late the memory, late your kiss

too late, too late.

 

He was calm and handsome

he was alone, an orphan,

he was righteous and boundless

like the sky.

 

Now you call his name,

you swear a fierce oath on his blood

and wait for the hour of death;

he is leaving us now like the rain

like the rain, like the rain.

 

1976

Red Rose

Each morning we’d set out

for work

we’d laugh on the bus

we were two young men.

Red rose

red evening.

 

We set off one morning

together for the war

all of us sang together

we all fought together.

You were killed in May

your blood was mauve

it painted the sky black

the season red.

 

Everything was killed with you:

dreams, ideals -

we all became ghosts

we live conventional lives.

Our flags have become

goods for sale

our dreams commodities

of consumption.

 

1977

The Trap

Your hands were filled with songs

your feet touched the green water

your dreams strolled in the streets

your thought dictated the rhythm of the day.

 

The din of cars and neon signs

hid the echo in the poor quarters;

night howled in the muddy streets

two friends exchanged the sacred oath.

 

Who would have told you, the one in the cap

his burning eye, unkempt beard,

yellow spittle, blurry speech

that slid in the gut like burning iron?

 

You believed him and without another thought

entered the narrow street with no exit

who would have told you, the one in the cap?

He set you a sweet trap and now it’s too late.

 

Essen, 1977

 

1978

Now that the Flowers are Dying

Now that the flowers are dying

now that the birds are quiet,

the songs stay on my lips,

forgotten love of my heart.

 

Our ways parted one day 

burdened with heavy clouds

our life anguish and blight

now in the frozen roads.

 

We wait for the miracle now

behind the dim window-pane;

our pride has become a lament 

a stifled cry of pain.

 

Our ways parted forever

don’t wait on the corner tonight

spring is only for others

our life is anguish and blight.

 

 

 

Included in Journey in the Night, 1978

 

1980

The Song of the Earth

You never heard

the song of the earth

nor will you hear it again.

You killed all the birds

the forests

the water

the shining water

the river.

Gone...

You killed the earth

the sun

your heart.

Never again will you see

the color of the sky

never again will you hear

the sound of the colors.

Like a gunshot you are heading for chaos.

For the last time let the song

of the Earth be heard in the silence.

Before I am finally wrapped in chaos

I’ll say “Good-bye!” to life.

 

Second Symphony, 1980