1943

Odysseus

I return! I return! I return!

My pores opened on my voyage through the sea

that came and took root in my heart.

And my heart passed through my body

and spread wide, sowing in the ocean’s heart

the sweet melody of return.

 

I return! I return! I return!

Behind every flower, every island

and every lovely thing

the divine vision extends towards me

the one, inimitable, unchanging Ithaca.

You could say that all nature was made only to hide

its beauty like the thin clouds

that cover the sun at sunset

making its beauty more intense.

 

Around me, in me, everywhere, the sea,

laughing and beloved,

mirrors the sun, the stars and the passing gulls.

Every wave that passes

brings me closer to you.

Every single thing is sweet, so sweet,

even the most unbearable pain

when it brings me closer to you, oh my country.

 

 

Athens, 1943.

 

1943

Small Fantasy

1943

Everything Will End

1944

Anonymous Phrases

They embraced and danced a languid waltz.

 

Later they paused, squeezed each other tightly

and kissed for the last time.

Strange thoughts oppressed them.

They kissed again, mechanically, so as to extend

who knows what.

But their lips weren’t aware of flesh

and their arms twined in absent-minded embraces.

 

*        *       *

 

Now I take the form of a mouse

and appear before them. I dip my tail

in ink and write on the window pane:

“Destiny calls to life.”

It seems they became aware of me immediately. 

They soon recovered and became distracted again.

 

 

*     *     *

 

I open the door and see the mouse

lounging about. The revolver has been forgotten

on the desk. I look at him and say:

-Did you commit this rash act? 

He runs and puts his head

in the barrel so as to block the bullet.

But I waste no time and move away.

 

Very carefully I collect a little of the blood 

that was there and cover

the anonymous phrases with it.

 

 

Athens, 1944

 

1945

Tell Me, Branches

Tell me, branches,

speak trees

and clear streams, 

tell me, before he died 

did the partisan who fell

wounded in the battle

speak his mother’s name

a mother who waits, wasting away

who endures, suffering?

 

 

Five Sailors, 1945

 

1945

The Words of Love

The words of love like the spring leaves

a sun came and kissed us on the lips.

 

Five young lads and a girl dancing

their hearts on their lips.

 

Like branches blossoming with grace

five loves mingle and kiss the grass.

 

 

1946

The way the earth smelled after a small spring shower.

To Myrto

 

I remember you said one word

and I picked some grass

with its roots full of earth

to rub on my heart and make it smell good.

 

I told you that when I was a boy

I liked to bury myself in the soil

and speak to the long worms

about the secrets of the earth.

Each one brings me a memory

and its voice is lost in the noise

made by all the different kinds of roots

as they burrow deeper and deeper into the earth.

How frightened we were when a seed burst open

and a new plant sprang out...

 

*     *     *

 

No, I didn’t like looking at the stars,

they seemed so far away and foreign.

I liked the sun better

especially in summer when its rays

danced on my skin

singing a strange song

whose words are buried now

deep in my memory.

 

Then, for the first time 

I thought about merging the songs

I’d been listening to all day

into a single song

that we’d all sing together.

 

This thought wasn’t completely my own.

I heard it said by a small golden-green leaf

which sprang out that moment

from the green branch of our conversation.

 

The next day I woke at dawn

went down to the fields and rolled

in the dewdrops.

My whole body shivered

and there wasn’t the tiniest cell of my skin

that wasn’t singing

a little song.

 

Then I told my secret to the grass.

The small leaves nearby

bent their heads to listen in secret,

hundreds of worms came down below, happy

to tell our secret to the whole world

Every drop of earth was joyful

that day…

 

Then I told them we’d lie down quietly

and wait for the sun to come out...

And in fact we were suddenly

so quiet

that we could hear

the distant song of Dawn

that is like coral

shed by the delicate tears of birds...

How beautiful that song was.

I wonder if we’ll be able to sing

as beautifully as that?

 

 

   *    *     *

 

 

No, I don’t like the song of the earth any more.

The roots tear the earth discordantly

and the sun’s rays shout, fierce and furious. 

Now I like the song of the Dawn. 

When I hear it I think

I am in a forest with corals scattered

by the delicate tears of the birds

in the peaceful glow of morning.

 

The little plants, the leaves and the worms

stretch out their hands to me like a sob

and call me, pleading:

“Stay, the sun will soon come out

and we can sing together.”

But can I stay far

from the song of Dawn?

 

For the first time I climbed the wall

of our garden and I felt

like a plant pulled from its soil.

Then I found myself in strange streets.

But the rosy glow shimmered

before my eyes and I was happy

that in a little while my skin would be bathed again

in that wonderful song.

 

*    *    *

 

As you see, I’m no longer a child 

and yet I still haven’t managed

to reach that lovely song.

I almost regret

that I left half my heart

buried in the earth.

I worry whether my dearest friends

will accept me again

and whether my heart will recognize me

now that it, too, may have become

a little piece of grass

perhaps a small bush

with a few red blossoms dotted

by delicate dewdrops.

I would love to go back to the earth.

How many songs will we really sing again…?

And now the new summer is coming

we’ll wait for the sun

to tell it our secret

and make our old dream

come true.

 

 

Athens, 1946.

 

1946

I Love You, There’s No Way Around It

A

 

I have black soil, pale soil

blood-red suns,  white suns

hearts with roots,  roots with wings

cities with tombs, tombs with life.

I hold hate in one hand

love in the other.

 

I am not some mythical creature.

I live in pale blue islands

and scarlet passions.

You know me... You sense me

more than you know me.

  

 

B

 

You know me.

You sense me more than you know me.

Oh, you will tell me

it’s been a long time since we buried Bethlehem

and the anemones on their tombs chatted

to the pale girls of Sion.

I have no demands. I have no demands at all.

Only that you let me see

the sunset in your eyes.

 

 

Athens, 1946

 

1946

Love Song

All my thoughts are a flowering almond branch

  hanging at your window.

My voice speaks to you with a thousand colors and a thousand

secret shades, but you remain deep

in the dream of your life, brightened

by a blissful flame.

(See the moons that melt in tears

see the tears that flame like stars

see the stars that resemble the countless hopes

of those hearts whose denial of life

has revealed their destiny!)

And don’t wake up! You’d find nothing more here

than you already know

since even pain that marks the thoughtful brow

of life with a star has denied himself

and even he, tonight, has turned 

to joy!

 

 

Athens, 1946

 

1946

Five Soldiers

(War Diary  )

 

How did I find myself suddenly so distant?

(I could never understand

how much the moment when you sit

between two fires can be annihilated).

 

I had to defend myself so as to live.

It had slipped so mysteriously from my body

and scattered around me

so that I was inseparably tied

to reality and to my companions.

 

We went on together

bound tight by necessity

with hearts changed

from breast to breast.

 

We weren’t permitted to speak

to ourselves.

We turned our eyes almost as one:

on the far horizon

a thousand birds were lost in disarray.

 

We had already covered

 a great distance on foot.

At that point where we found ourselves

we could make out

a red signpost.

We wondered if it could mark

the border that separates

the past from the future.

At that point we tightened the straps of our helmets

at the cheek, trying to breathe 

with the frigid air

some thought that might hold up

in this sad landscape.

 

The roofs of the houses

echo the sounds

of our footsteps in fear.

We see our tired shadows

mirrored in the cloudy eyes of the sky

as we move carefully ahead

holding each other by the hand

across the line that etches

the brow of war.

Behind the dark apartment building

waits the hairy hand

of Polyphemus.

We are five companions

holding each other by the hand,

our hearts leached

in the snow of night

and the painted fields

of spring.

 

Soon it began to grow light.

At first my eyes watered

then I got used to it and I could make out

my mother’s hand

as it came to moisten my eyelashes.

 

Sunk in the mud

I hold my rifle tight in my hand.

For a moment I felt my head 

detach itself from my body

and go to another body

and then to another and another.

The landscape was full of headless bodies

and only my head moved around

from body to body.

What had happened, then,

to the heads of my companions?

 

 

Someone pulled the screen of rain across

and I felt as if I were alone

so I tried to take advantage

of this moment to look at myself.

 

(The clouds are not far above the earth.

They have moved down.

I believe that by morning

there won’t be anything left.

They’ll begin with the tall apartment buildings

and the smokestacks of Piraeus.

The walls will buckle and break bit by bit.

Then it will be the turn of the houses.

Finally they’ll demolish the slums

and the wooden hovels at Dourgouti).

 

Then, on the opposite corner

five men appeared.

They were five men of ancient Athens

in heavy winter tunics.

 

It was high time because the earth

had become liquid and stormy.

We crawled towards them

and we all saw

our City

tossing about,

rudderless and drunken.

 

Slowly, completely unexpectedly

beside these men

we discovered we were human

and we had a heart in our breast.

The German helmets

pulled low on the forehead

no longer prevented us from seeing our eyes.

My Beloved

greeted me at the entrance to the park

with her blue scarf.

 

 

But it was futile.

A noise began to rise

from one side of the city to the other.

All five of us immediately dived

into the stormy sea.

As we swam

we felt our hearts bending

for the first time like a cypress.

We reached the avenue and could see

the endless row of those who’d been hanged

 

 

My Mother and my Beloved

My Mother and my Beloved

My Mother and my Beloved

A thousand times.

My Mother and my Beloved.

And the shells passing overhead 

from the boats at Phaleron

formed a multicolored

festive arbor. 

 

The five companions were anxious when we were late

but they held on strongly to our position.

In the momentary flashes of the rifles

one could make out

the thin red thread that linked our hearts.

The sky and the clouds

descended towards the city.

Around us the sea swelled

and the waves

burned the eyes in our faces.

From the hill of Ardittos

a loudspeaker could be heard cutting out:

“Athens never dies. It is victorious.”

But the dawn seemed as if it would never come.

As they descended, the sky

and the clouds rested on some high buildings

and the smokestacks of Piraeus.

And the sea rose up from below and caught us.

 

Suddenly in the storm a light appeared

and your voice echoed loudly

before the wave could snatch it.

It was strong enough to bear us up

for quite some time on the surface.

 

But it was already too late.

Now, just as our hearts

opened their doors wide

to the love of the earth

the vast sea suddenly dried up

and the waves became black birds.

Your voice was useless now

that we found ourselves lying stretched out

among the ruins

with the others passing by and trampling on us.

 

We struggled with the waves and on the sea

day and night

but we didn’t learn any more

than what a crumb of earth knows.

Ask the smallest leaf on the tree in our courtyard

that plays lightly in the wind

and it will tell you why

we five beardless soldiers of December

straddled the border of death

with so much love.

 

1946

Schubert’s “Unfinished”

Three capsized moons

in a handful of water.

A broken boat  full

of larks and violets

I passed you and you were

yesterday’s rain.

I’ll come and find you holding

a taut string in your hand.

My name is Phaidon.

I have nothing more

beyond my raveled sleeve.

 

I no longer suffer the voice of the birds.

 

 

Athens, 1946.

 

1946

Little Narcissi

My chest expanded

to hold the small jasmine 

you sowed tonight with your thin fingers

on my heart.

I didn’t see you at all --

I couldn’t make you out

in such darkness.

But I felt your eyes

running over my entire skin

and I could even sense

the little narcissi fallen over

on their blue-green water.

 

 

Athens, 1946.

 

1947

Seas Surround Us.

Seas surround us

waves close us in

on the wild rocks

they guard our youth.

 

They sent our people

the best young men

to weigh them down

with heavy bonds.

 

We’ll stand up

to the  guards’ spite

steel in our hearts

fire in our soul.

 

Mother, don’t sigh,

mother, don’t lament,

the thrones are falling

and the earth trembles.

 

Dawn is breaking

on the mountain,

the enemy cowers

freedom has come.

 

Strike them brothers

strike hard.

When Markos  strikes

the earth shakes, the dry land.     

 

1947

The House with the Scorpions

1947

Night Song

And while you were still in the Light,

Night stayed awake beside you...

And the wild winds raged above you

when the still torn melody of Calm

lulled you to sleep, ever so sweetly...

 

1948

Elegy

For Agamemnon Danis

 

A hundred raised hands wave

and disappear in the dusk

and you, lost comrade,

greet and hearten them, as you sit

on the knee of the sun.

 

(Silence sinking with loosened hair --

above the deep sigh of the earth;

beneath the olives a cry

of lament that’s been forgotten).

 

From far-off Chios, in Petropoulis

and from Asia at Ay Ilia

we felt the sky bend

and kiss our wound

and you, lost comrade, 

were a thousand birds

flying South!

 

And girls came from Daphne

and from Steli, bitter mothers;

from Arethousa and Vrakades, folk in black,

and from Armenisti came old fishermen

with hearts salted by sea and tears

and they sat all round us

and a shrill lament began.

And you were the sigh of the people

the wing-beat of a vulture

that pounces!

 

1949

South Wind

1951

Whatever You Say