KATERINA AGGELAKI-ROUK/ΚΑΤΕΡΙΝΑ ΑΓΓΕΛΑΚΗ —ΡΟΥΚ

LIFE’S LACK OF APPETITE
I’m not hungry, I don’t hurt I don’t stink
perhaps deep inside I suffer and I don’t know it
I pretend I laugh
I don’t seek the impossible
nor the possible, bodies
forbidden to me don’t please my eyes.
Sometimes I gaze the sky
with a yearning glance
when the sun lessens its gleam and
the blue lover surrenders
to the beauty of the night.
My only involvement
with the going around of the world
is my steady breath.
But I also feel another
strange involvement:
the agony I suddenly feel
for the human pain.
It spreads on earth
like a drenched in blood
liturgical tablecloth
that shrouds myths and gods
it renews itself endlessly
and becomes one with life.
Yes, I want to cry now
but even the fountain of my tears
has turned dry.

Η Ανορεξία της Ύπαρξης

Δεν πεινάω, δεν πονάω, δε βρωμάω
ίσως κάπου βαθιά να υποφέρω και να μην το ξέρω
κάνω πως γελάω
δεν επιθυμώ το αδύνατο
ούτε το δυνατό, τα απαγορευμένα
για μένα σώματα δε μου χορταίνουν τη ματιά.
Τον ουρανό καμιά φορά
κοιτάω με λαχτάρα
την ώρα που ο ήλιος σβύνει τη λάμψη του
κι ο γαλανός εραστής παραδίνεται
στη γοητεία της νύχτας.
Η μόνη μου συμμετοχή
στο στροβίλισμα του κόσμου
είναι η ανάσα μου που βγαίνει σταθερή.
Αλλά νιώθω και μια άλλη
παράξενη συμμετοχή
αγωνία με πιάνει ξαφνικά
για τον ανθρώπινο πόνο.
Απλώνεται πάνω στη γη
σαν λειτουργικό τραπεζομάντιλο
που μουσκεμένο στο αίμα
σκεπάζει μύθους και θεούς
αιώνεια αναγεννιέται
και με τη ζωή ταυτίζεται.
Ναι, τώρα θέλω να κλάψω
αλλά στέρεψε ως και των δακρύων μου
η πηγή.

~ Katerina Aggelaki—Rouk, translated by Manolis Aligizakis

TASOS LIVADITIS- SELECTED POEMS/ΤΑΣΟΣ ΛΕΙΒΑΔΙΤΗΣ, ΕΚΛΕΓΜΕΝΑ ΠΟΙΗΜΑΤΑ

ΕΚ ΠΡΩΤΗΣ όψεως, βέβαια, όλοι φαίνονται απροσδόκητα
ενώ αυτό που φοβόμαστε έχει γίνει από καιρό, κι ήτανε μέσα μας,
κι εμείς το πηγαίναμε στην επικίνδυνη ώρα και συχνά σταματού-
σες στη μέση της σκάλας, γιατί ποιός ξέρει πού είναι το άλλο
σκαλοπάτι, ιδιαίτερα το βράδυ καθώς διάβαινες τις άδειες κάμα-
ρες, σου `πεφτε πάντα κάτι απ’ τα χέρια, σαν να `θελε να ξαναγυ-
ρίσει, και τότε, όπως γονάτιζες να το βρεις, συναντούσες τον
άλλον
αφού κάθε κίνηση μας προδίνει, κι ένα άλλο ποτήρι σηκώνεις
απ’ αυτό που πήγαινες, προτίμησα, λοιπόν, να σωπάσω, μα όταν
μες στο σκοτάδι χτύπησαν μεσάνυχτα, όλο το σπίτι ράγισε άξαφνα,
και τότε, στο βάθος του διαδρόμου, το είδαμε που πέρασε εντελώς
καθαρά.
AT FIRST glance of course everything seem to be unexpected
while what we’ve feared had already taken place and was inside us
and we carried it to the dangerous hour and often you would stop
in the middle of the stairs because, who knows where was the next
step; especially in the night as you walked through the empty rooms
something always fell off your hands as if wanting to return and
then as you’d kneel to find it you would meet the other man
since every gesture gives us up and you carry a different
glass from the one you wanted, I therefore chose to keep silent;
but when in darkness midnight struck suddenly the whole
house shook and then at the end of the hallway we saw him
as he quite clearly walked by us.

~Τάσου Λειβαδίτη-Εκλεγμένα Ποιήματα/Μετάφραση Μανώλη Αλυγιζάκη
~Tasos Livaditis-Selected Poems/Translated by Manolis Aligizakis

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FOREWORD

The people’s poet in more than one way, Tasos Livaditis stands apart from other poets of his era because of his deep understanding, his heart rendering existential agony, initially expressed as a tender cry filled with compassion within the boundaries of his optimistic realism and on the second phase of his creative career as an introverted search for the meaning of life in the past after the dissolution of his expectations as an artist-fighter for a better future.
The calendar will show October
with the wilted leaves and revolutions

It was October when he said to us farewell. We kept his most recent verses that underscored that message yet not only.

Here I‘ve come to the end. Time to go. As you will also go.
and the ghosts of my life will search for me
running in the night and leaves will shiver and fall.
Autumn comes this way. For this, I say to you,
let us look at life with more compassion, since it was never real.

He never imagined that the ghosts of his life would multiply in such a fast pace soon after his death. The adventure of his vision turned out to become a hardship, the rapid fashion of change in social behaviour and charting even unforeseen by the most suspicious of men truly shifted dramatically in the short nineteen years after his death. Within just one or two years after his death the so called socialistic dream collapsed in an unforgiving way that turned the obviously existent into a fable.

However Livaditis knew deep inside that only the Just Time eventually justifies one. Today the Just Time says about Livaditis that he was one very important poet. He was not at all insignificant although not recognized enough. Because as times passes and values change or shift position the Just Time sets laws and flawless details in the Stock Market of Values.

Tasos Livaditis is one of the last poets who dreamed of a different Greece and gave all he had to turn that dream into reality. He was one of the last who believed in the collective versus the personal even if that collective meant dramatic adventures, not only his exile and persecution but also the adventure of his internal revolution. The person who dreamed of a better world was embittered when he realized the utopia of his vision. Yet he never lost faith in man and although the serious severing that took place in his life scared him he always stood gracefully opposite the descending sun and in that glamour of red dusk he wept alone but with optimism for the future.
Unfortunately his life was cut short and at the age of 66 when he departed leaving a nation to mourn the people’s poet and to reflect and shift their focus toward his vision because the world of the poet is the world of humiliation and exhaustion. It’s the world of bitterness and futility and Tasos Livaditis suffered a lot, was persecuted a lot and pendulated a lot in his life. How else could he write such great poems?

There is a similarity in the life of this man and the life of Yannis Ristsos whom Tasos Livaditis refer to as the teacher. Both men were leftists along with Avgeris, Varnalis, Anagnostakis and others, they were both exiled for their political views, they both left behind a vast bibliography, they both had one daughter and they both went through a poetic shift, a change of focus from writing poetry to serve the cause of the left to writing poetry having in its center the progress, improvement and refinement of the external and internal pleats of man.

In the Introduction of this edition I have added one poem written by Yannis Ritsos and excerpts from reviews written in Greek by friends and close associates of the poet on the twentieth anniversary of Tasos Livaditis’ death. I have translated these excerpts and place them in the order I thought most appropriate. I chose to introduce this great poet to the English speaking world not only with the regular introduction format but also with these comments published by Kedros in 2008, this poet’s exclusive publisher.

The sources of these reviews are referred to in the bibliography of this book.

My heartfelt thank you is extended to Mr. Stelios Petros Halas for granting me his permission to do this translation.

~Manolis Aligizakis

Übermensch/Υπεράνθρωπος

Ascertainment

 

     Early on we understood it was too late for us. There was

no place left where we could honor our saintly dead. Ηow

with lashes to discern who to punish and who to reward

with ephemeral fame while we got flogged by the wrath

of the right? Full moon witnessed tragedies and measures,

unimaginable delight of the confessor who tried to calm down

our resolve, ‘I looked at the impossible end’ he told us and fear,

unblemished fear, how heavy you weighted down onto

our lives as we kept marching in sunny days and in the darkness

of our guilt and we sang courage to give to our courage and

to accept that god was dead the days of the Ubermensch

had commenced.

 

ΔΙΑΠΙΣΤΩΣΗ

 

      Νωρίς το καταλάβαμε ήταν πολύ αργά για μας, τόπο δεν

είχαμε για ν’ αποδώσουμε τιμές στους άγιους νεκρούς μας.

Πώς να ξεχωρίσεις ποιον να μαστιγώσεις και ποιον

να ανταμείψεις με την εφήμερη τη φήμη, ενώ

μας χτύπαγε η οργή της δεξιάς; Πανσέληνος μάρτυρας

τραγωδίας και μέτρων μιαρών, αφάνταστη χαρά πνευματικού

που επίσης γαλήνευε τη φλογερή μας φύση, «προσπάθησα

ξανά προσεκτικά να δω το τέλος μα ήταν αδύνατο», μας είπε

κι ο φόβος, άχραντος φόβος που τόσο βάραινε τη νειότη μας

και το ταξίδι συνεχίσαμε σε μέρες φωτεινές και σ’ ενοχής

σκοτάδι κι ετραγουδήσαμε το θάρρος μας να ενθαρρύνουμε,

που πέθανε ο θεός, οι μέρες του Υπερανθρώπου αρχίσανε.

 

Ubermensch, Ekstasis Editions, Victoria, BC, spring 2013

Υπεράνθρωπος, ΕΝΕΚΕΝ, Θεσσαλονίκη, Μάτριος 2014, τηλ 2310-833665

 

Übermensch/Υπεράνθρωπος

Ascertainment

 

     Early on we understood it was too late for us. There was

no place left where we could honor our saintly dead. Ηow

with lashes to discern who to punish and who to reward

with ephemeral fame while we got flogged by the wrath

of the right? Full moon witnessed tragedies and measures,

unimaginable delight of the confessor who tried to calm down

our resolve, ‘I looked at the impossible end’ he told us and fear,

unblemished fear, how heavy you weighted down onto

our lives as we kept marching in sunny days and in the darkness

of our guilt and we sang courage to give to our courage and

to accept that god was dead the days of the Ubermensch

had commenced.

 

ΔΙΑΠΙΣΤΩΣΗ

 

      Νωρίς το καταλάβαμε ήταν πολύ αργά για μας, τόπο δεν

είχαμε για ν’ αποδώσουμε τιμές στους άγιους νεκρούς μας.

Πώς να ξεχωρίσεις ποιον να μαστιγώσεις και ποιον

να ανταμείψεις με την εφήμερη τη φήμη, ενώ

μας χτύπαγε η οργή της δεξιάς; Πανσέληνος μάρτυρας

τραγωδίας και μέτρων μιαρών, αφάνταστη χαρά πνευματικού

που επίσης γαλήνευε τη φλογερή μας φύση, «προσπάθησα

ξανά προσεκτικά να δω το τέλος μα ήταν αδύνατο», μας είπε

κι ο φόβος, άχραντος φόβος που τόσο βάραινε τη νειότη μας

και το ταξίδι συνεχίσαμε σε μέρες φωτεινές και σ’ ενοχής

σκοτάδι κι ετραγουδήσαμε το θάρρος μας να ενθαρρύνουμε,

που πέθανε ο θεός, οι μέρες του Υπερανθρώπου αρχίσανε.

 

Ubermensch, Ekstasis Editions, Victoria, BC, spring 2013

Υπεράνθρωπος, ΕΝΕΚΕΝ, Θεσσαλονίκη, Μάτριος 2014, τηλ 2310-833665

 

Impact/Επίπτωση

Impact

     And since the new reality was upon us truly we 

accepted it: dead was our God. Buried him yesterday

afternoon with no songs, no paeans, nor lamentations

and we felt a lot lighter. Nothing was as ticklish as

the mood of the sombre day while fear, I would say,

deep in our hearts, hidden. Sorrow reigned in the black

funeral home office while just outside beggars stretched

their hands asking for what we couldn’t spare, decency

of the new serpent who appeared but without fangs,

feverish magnolia bloomed its purple flowers over

our nuptial bed and in an eyrie we filled our chalice

with courage and we mailed it to the four corners of

the universe and promised never to be trapped again  

in the idiocy of a system.

 

The Andian condor we declared heir of the flesh.

The wind and the rain we proclaimed our catharsis.

 

     Evoe, oh, free elements, evoe.

 

     ‘Multiply and conquer the earth’ someone said. And

it was good.

 

Επίπτωση

     Όντως ήταν αληθινό και το δεχτήκαμε. Πέθανε

ο Θεός μας. Τον θάψαμε χθές το απόγευμα χωρίς

τραγούδια ή παιάνες, δίχως κλαυθμούς και μοιρολόγια

κι ανάλαφροι ενιώσαμε τίποτα πιο πολύ δεν μας

γαργάλαγε παρά το ύφος της μουντής μέρας ενώ ο φόβος,

θάλεγα, βαθειά μες την καρδιά μας είχε καταχωνιαστεί.

Στην σκοτεινή αίθουσα του γραφείου κηδειών κουμάντο

έκανε η θλίψη κι έξω απ’ την πόρτα οι ζητιάνοι απλώνανε

το χέρι και ζητούσαν αυτό που δεν θα τους δίναμε, ευπρέπεια

του φιδιού που δίχως δόντια εμφανίστηκε, η μαγνόλια

που άνθισε μενεξελιά μπουμπούκια πάνω στο νυφικό

κρεβάτι κι εμείς μες τη φωλιά του αετού γεμίσαμε κουράγιο

το δισκοπότηρό μας και το ταχυδρομήσαμε στα τέσσερα

της οικουμένης άκρα κι υποσχεθήκαμε ποτέ συστήματος

θύματα να μην πέσουμε.

 

Τον κόνδορα κληρονόμο της σάρκας κηρύξαμε.

Τον άνεμο και τη βροχή κάθαρση ονομάσαμε.

 

      Ευοί, ώ, λεύτερα στοιχεία, ευοί.

 

     ‘Πολλαπλασιαστείτε και κατακτήσετε τη γη’

κάποιος εφώναξε. Κι ήταν σωστό.

~Übermensch

~Υπεράνθρωπος