Surprise
This wind came by surprise
amid such motionless radiance,
in such a heat, sweat and brilliance.
They pulled the boats onto the shore;
The vacationers put on their shirts.
It was good. The idea of protection
underscored the fear of loss. Therefore
there was still something that could
be lost in this dry, golden summer.
The wind quietened down in the evening
and left behind the damp seaweed.
POEM BY KOSTAS KARIOTAKIS
LOVE
And I lived in darkness. And I was darkness.
And a ray shown on me
Her joyous face as fresh as dew
and I as the parched asphodel
and the awakening youth shook me
how my bitter lips smiled.
As if her eyes told me
I wasn’t a castaway anymore
and I was bent by tenderness
I who was turned into stone by grief
POEM BY NAPOLEO LAPATHIOTIS
POET
The drama of your life and art,
so insignificant and yet so deeply thought,
spending your mind’s magnificence
in futile, laughable diversions,
playing with words all day and night,
testing how to put them next to one another,
how to mix them and add music to them,
how to enclose your dreams in verse.
Such pain and struggle, such an agony
to mould and turn your sorrow into harmony
and knead it using all your craftiness
just to return it to the people,
truly I don’t know of any other drama
more important than your pain
the pain that longs be imprisoned in a cage
its space the alphabet of man.
And after you have played with rhymes
and words like little children in their games
and after you’ve diminished all your hope
and lost yourself among your memories
as soon as the regrets appear
when the moment comes to bow or not
you lift your cross along with all your treasure
and to Golgotha you stumble to be crucified!
[Ενότητα Το δίχτυ των ψυχών, II]
Αποδημητικά
Τα χείλη παραιτούνται απ’ τη φωνή,
Τους στυφούς φθόγγους.
Σωπαίνουν τα όργανα
Τα πνευστά και τα έγχορδα.
(Μέσα τους παρατείνεται η Μουσική,
Μια θάλασσα πολυφωνική πο’ ’χει σωπάσει.)
Μαζεύουν σωπασμένο αντίλαλο απ’ τ’ αδειανά κοχύλια,
Βαφή από μαραμένα ρόδα, διάφανη φεγγοβολή
Από το καθάριο αίμα τους, κι αλλάζουν
Τ’ άφωνα χείλη, γίνονται ασπασμοί
Στο πρόσωπό σου, στο σεπτό σου εικόνισμα.
Γίνονται ασπασμοί, γοργά φιλιά,
Αποδημητικά, αεικίνητα, σαν χελιδόνια.
Από τη συλλογή Το δίχτυ των ψυχών (1965) του Γιώργου Θέμελη
Οι ποιητές της Θεσσαλονίκης τον 20ό αιώνα και ως σήμερα (ανθολογία) / Γιώργος Θέμελης
Hellenic Canadian Literature 