Twelve Narratives of the Gypsy

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First Narrative

ARRIVAL

The public roads, capes, forests,

rocks are ours. We’re arriviste always

moving. Homes and fireplaces are meant

for others.

Ibsen

A gypsy nursed him; for this he has wings

Serbian song

Deep darkness is flooded

by a fine whiteness that

resembles the night: this

was my mind’s first dawn

and during the honey-coloured hour

something caressing had

spread softer than

smooth breeze when

it came filled with balsam

of the morning green forests

smoother than soft breeze

and it was in a faraway

land the spring of peoples

and ages: in Thrace.

George Seferis – Collected Poems

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On A Ray Of Winter Light

5

What turbid river has engulfed us?

We remained in the depths.

The current flows over our heads

and bends the speechless canes;

the voices

under the chestnut tree turned into pebbles

that the children throw.

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Twelve Narratives of the Gypsy

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Ο Δωδεκάλογος του Γύφτου του Κωστή Παλαμά σε μετάφραση μου για πρώτη φορά στη Β. Αμερική. Το πιο δύσκολο έργο που έχω μεταφράσει ποτέ. Παρ’ όλα αυτά το αποτέλεσμα είναι υπέροχο όσο και το πρωτότυπο. /// The Twelve Narratives of the Gypsy, by Kostis Palamas, in my translation for the first time in N. America; the most difficult translation I’ve ever done. Yet the end result stands as gracefully and as beautifully as its original.

Tasos Livaditis – Poems, Volume II

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Long Listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards

2023 Longlist Announcement

Alibi

I couldn’t understand one thing and I hope you wouldn’t

either because exactly at the appropriate time someone

opened the door and they all left one by one. I was alone.

“Even this is an alibi, but to exonerate who?”

I stammered.

This has been my story. Now, serene, I sit in my room

like a man who has left everything behind and expects

nothing and he’s all alone and his only power is that

he has no power at all.

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Ithaca Series, Poem #673

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Painting by Adina Romanescu

And If Love Were Right? …

Love, love, love! Always love!
Everyone seeks it from the first sigh.
But love comes when one doesn’t expect it any longer
and then leaves without ever warning.

Is one right to play hide-and-seek
with our soul? To open for us the skies
when the earth is too small in our eyes
and then takes our hearts as haven?

Or else,
would it be wrong
to teach us that death
is the very last season …

And if love were right?

Paula Romanescu, Romania

ΚΙ ΑΝ ΕΙΝΑΙ Η ΑΓΑΠΗ ΑΛΗΘΙΝΗ;

Αγάπη, αγάπη, αγάπη, πάντα η αγάπη

που όλοι ποθούν στο πρώτο στεναγμό

μα η αγάπη έρχεται όταν δεν την περιμένεις πια

και φεύγει δίχως αντίο.

Είναι σωστό να παίζει το κρυφτό

με την ψυχή μας; Τον ουρανό να μας χαρίζει

όταν η γη είναι μικρή στα μάτια μας

και να απαγάγει τις καρδιές μας στον Παράδεισο;

Ή θα `ταν άραγε λάθος

να μας διδάσκει

πως ο θάνατος είναι

η τελευταία εποχή;

Κι αν η αγάπη είναι αληθινή;

Μετάφραση Μανώλη Αλυγιζάκη//Translation by Manolis Aligizakis

Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume IV

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THE GATE

Excerpt XLVI

How nicely we feel satiated eating our hands while

the others eat our bread; hey brainless, moustache

bearers, eagle-eyed; all your height measured by

the length of your phallous;

you glance all the way to your legs, not higher; you

have aimed correctly; you kneed the soil with your

urine;

a thousand girls delouse your hairy chests, they take

out crabs, seahorses, shrimp;

lakes, little mirrors in gardens with their reflections

don’t blind you; and those mirrors of the night just

a bit higher than your noses don’t scratch you.

I saw it

and said it: justice is yours. I placed a rock in each

pocket of my vest so I couldn’t be blown away; The

shining feather was useless next to the moon. Ash

fell in the captains’ glasses. I told them, I yelled it

on the seventh night; I took the pliers, got the nails

off the hands; I placed in their palms a knife, a breast,

a wound up doll, a bird, a red apple without worm;

keep it, I said to him, I’ll bite on the apple so you can

see the marks of my teeth; strong teeth because

I have a choked voice;

you’ll observe the lizard walking behind the frame

without bothering with the paper.

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Wheat Ears-Selected Poems

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Rules

He breaks all rules made by higher

authority, earthly or otherwise,

doesn’t revere the somber faces

drinks to his heart’s content

smokes ugly teeth cigarettes

and at times indulges in simply

inhaling and passing out on

elements that fly to him from

hyperspace, he takes up cursing

and laying the neighbor’s

woman, with all good will for

orange dusk and smooth sailing

through the morality maze and

church’s absurd solutions

blaspheming his simple serenity

except when mesmerizing

Hades nears and finds his

soul submersed in exhilaration

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