1981

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.

 

1982

Gloria

Link arms

join hands

mountains and valleys, take up the song,

cities and harbors, enter the dance.

 

Today we’ll wed the Sun,

to his one-and-only bride, the lilac.

 

Our Easter lilac, our girl,

our fields, seas, mountains,

mothers, daughters, slain brothers, fathers,

a tree with one root, one source, one spring.

 

Today we’ll wed  the Sun,

to his one-and-only bride, the lilac.

 

Longest  day – Defender – Defender! 

 

1984

Dionysos’ Defence

Greetings to you my pure white judges

I stand before you.

Out with your nails and fires!

the terrible punishment

must emerge from this assembly.

 

Burn the verses, every magical melody

that carries us to unknown, visionary places.

 

Greetings to the mighty of this world

I stand before you

Out with your nails and spleen!

like the mountains they hold hard metals

and they make holes in them

and wound their heart 

but the heart slips from their nails and sings.

 

antistrophe A'

 

Armies prowl

the summits of Dionysos

to set fires

 

They want to burn the god

with his brides at his side

and the boys at their dancing.

 

antistrophe B'

 

My Dionysos

with your gallant feathers, bold lad

you lead off the procession

my Dionysos, 

look who is following you

Greeks and foreigners.

 

1984

A Prison

A prison

--how did they reach us there? -- 

a prison

my life a prison.

 

Without a sentence

-how did they reach us there?-- 

or judge

my life a prison.

 

At Makriyannis

before you could even speak

a British volley brought you to your knees.

You looked at us sadly

I suppose you were thinking

how little the day lasted.

 

 

In the squares,

each one sitting by himself

you stamped our fateful loneliness

with your sad look

who will tell the secret

in our lost life?

 

1984

The Refrigerator

Don’t ask, my heart

don’t beat

bitterness, fairytales

are all over for us

 

On your telephone

all the numbers

have been omitted

a dead life.

 

If you have eyes that see

and if you have breasts that suffer

how can you bear it, won’t you tell me,

such a life without weeping?

 

Those who loved

lie dead,

those who knelt down

are leaders.

 

Open the refrigerator

and go inside

so you’ll stay fresh

so you’ll be preserved.

 

1984

The Bear

A chain tied around my neck

I’m a bear; I dance a gypsy dance.

 

In the stadiums they train me

to greet the angry crowds.

Together with monkeys

they make me bow to the fierce crowds.

 

Silent angels enter my cell

the end has come, the beginning is still to come.

 

1984

On the Tenth of December

They’re sending the boy off in the bitter cold

his hands are crossed on his chest

he has no name, no family

he’d offered his youth to the spring.

 

On the tenth of December, a fantastic procession

of dead boys and girls

pass happily by in spring

and spring covers their hopeful bodies

joined in brotherhood with flowers

 

As I look at the pale boy

he begins, in my mind, a different journey

for all of us who lived through those days

and whose beliefs have remained buried.

 

1984

The Traitor

I hunted the streets of Athens

 --I was a beardless youth then.

I had a pistol and a fine,

fearful optimism.

 

The leaders send me to find

a traitor who hung out in Gouva.

I find the house and knock on his door

and his mother welcomes me with a smile.

 

--Sit down, son, and rest yourself,

my son will be here any time now;

don’t judge us by our poverty

our hearts are still good.

 

I look at her, how to tell her

that I’ve come to kill her traitor son;

on the steaming blood of her child

I’ve come to build a new Greece!

 

1984

The Tenant

Sworn soldiers entered Kalavryta 

You know what awaits you, all black and iniquitous.

 

The soldiers of our times never take oaths

they’re all civilians with chauffeurs’ faces.

 

Generals and Pharisees entered my lodgings

I know what awaits me, I write on my paper.

 

I write my income and I subtract my rent

and at the bottom I even sign my conviction.

 

1984

Don’t Weep for the Greek Spirit

I’ll speak to you with a different tune

don’t make me too angry please

I’m trying to find the Greek spirit

and this obsession makes me mad.

 

“Weep for the Greek spirit now

so you’ll get used to saying it.”

 

In my uncertainty I look for an answer

they avoid me, take me for a fool

the Greek spirit is married

she’s happy and pregnant.

 

“Weep for the Greek spirit now

so you’ll get used to saying it.”

 

These words are paranoid;

since she’s pregnant she must be fine

with Karoudas for a best man 

“Out with the Suda bases!” 

 

“Weep for the Greek spirit now

so you’ll get used to saying it.”

 

1984

Vision

1984

Good Mountains

My good purple mountains, cloud-dressed 

Why do you look at me solemnly, heavy and depressed?

 

Now I take the path of life alone

However you search you’ll never find how pain hurts.

 

And you, solitary children, don’t look at the world,

just walk alone in your hidden arcade. 

 

1984

The Journey

A single stride Petralona - Thission,

two strides Syngrou - Kaisariani

deep in my mind the archive

Sunday is always cloudy.

 

Don’t  look at me with brimming eyes

I have them stamped on my heart, 

our lost dreams.

 

Early in the morning I’ll go for a walk

I’ll take a distant road

I’ll say goodbye to my friends

I’ll stop to rest before dusk falls.

 

On my long journey

when I am alone with Death

I’ll smoke my last cigarette.....

 

1987

Zero Street

--Ah, ah, ah, little bird

what are you looking for in Hermes Street?

--I have lost Beatrice,

perhaps she’s looking for a new hat with feathers.

 

 

--Ah, ah, ah, little bird

what are you looking for in Zero Street?

--Tomorrow Beatrice swears her oath

she’s the first citizen of Makryiannistan.

 

The brave lad of the sky

appeared in the lanes

He holds thunderbolts in one hand

And sighs in the other

The brave lad, the brave lad

He’ll come at nine in the evening

Christ and the Virgin help him.

 

--Ah, ah, ah, little bird

what are you looking for in Why Street?

--There is no Beatrice

if there were, you would never have seen me.

 

1987

Stop Laughing, Beatrice

You forget me, your eyes closed

lips sealed

and I lose my way in the streets

stop laughing, Beatrice.

 

You laugh at me, your tears, water

your laugh empty

as the air.

stop laughing, Beatrice.

 

You hurt me, shadow in shadow

you scatter like smoke

and disappear in the streets.

 

Rain, one Sunday

when you bound me forever

in your golden hair.

stop laughing, Beatrice.