DIMITRIS ALLOS
***
Shifting sands memory
carves me and covets
all my sparrows all that nourishes me
(It happens every leap year
when I am left just skin and bones)
or
HER WHITE UTENSILS
“…… and I who eat memory
like a cycladic monument…”
I no longer remember her name
her face maybe a
downfall refugees now
electricity cut
but I remember clearly a sun drenched
midday it was
fresh sweat
dust on a private alley
God’s hand right on my chest I remember
kneading my soul’s material
and you
letting the dalmatians free in the room
oaou ouaou
treating me black grape
feeding me
grape by grape
To dirty my hands
with the civilization of her body
deep
down to the innards of the clouds
---------------------------------------------
VOICES THAT NEVER ESCAPED
(Archiloch in my dream)
“A certain Sahios must be enjoying now
the shield that accidentally I threw away next to
a bush even if it were an exquisite weapon;
but I managed to escape.
What do I care about the shield?
Let it get lost! Another one
I will acquire again no less good”.
ARCHILOCH
1
He learned how to walk on silences
maybe this is why his words recall silences
-ah! but do birds think of things like that?
2
When surprise
cuts through my sides like a knife
a dream of mine becomes
as real as flesh and bones
3
The clock has stopped
I count time with breaths
4
Everything inside me broken glares and nails
-I don’t dare to move
even my little finger-
poems hack to pieces
5
I am bleeding he whispered and a most tender awe
swept his little body away
6
Time is
poetry’s nourishment
and her lovers – occasionally
time’s new attire
7
Allegories of white devoured him
8
Snow makes
all my colours fade
even the white colour
9
Ah time!
ah time!
bird of tiny deaths
10a
I grope the shape of my skull
out of curiosity
10b
A small mistake at the excavations
gave the right impression: that of a smile
11
When I stumble on my luck
all my wounds fall on me
(hit by wishing of course)
12
My hands are red
as
it becomes
the victors
13
When my luck stumbles -up there of course-
a star falls
in my sleep
14
They wake up alarmed
-novice roosters-
and they peck on the capsules
of “I wish”
(… high up in the sky a moon shone as precious
as the Disk of Phaestos… just what I needed
- I said – just what I needed… to serve this self
reliant poem)
She banged in the room
her infected
coin the tepid fly
but where should I start
what can I denounce first
I woke up in the bed of Procrust
and I was
so close so close
***
-------------------------------------------
“ah! when the riddle has a good
answer it is when silence turns
into a whore”
MYKAMNON SALMONEUS
- a paraphrase -
The day a blade
it descends and I tremble
- I am afraid of the blood
running from the tongues
of goat after goat hanging on the hook
then comes thick darkness
-extremely raw from the tar
of countless cigarettes
and that
broken mouth
my curse
impossible I say
impossible
to explain
how so much
ink is
in my head
But how many cigarettes
can be put out in a poem
***
For Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke
-sole receiver
I give you as a present
this beautiful bird
and its cage
Translated from Greek by Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke |
