1962

The Chain

I turn the heavy chain

into a swallow

I turn the dark prison

into open sky.

Together we cut

the heavy chain

I and you and you and you.

We cut it together

 

Break the chain with bars!

Make the chain again with waves!

Break the chain with bars!

Make the chain with clouds!

Break the chain with shame!

Make the chain with lilacs!

Break the chain with the hook!

Make the chain with the Reveille!

Break the chain and the prison!

Make the chain body by body!

 

I turn the chain that speaks

into a thunderbolt!

I turn your luxurious palace

into a prison!

I and you and you and you

make the speaking chain together!

Freedom is won!

Freedom is won!

Kitsos  shouted

Slaves, rise up!

 

1968

The Consumer Society

West, your hearing is blocked,

West, your vision is obscured.

The consumer society’s heavy veil

has covered your hearing, 

covered your sight, your soul.

 

Your civilization is smoking ruins,

your words, mosquitoes that fly

over the swamps of your industrial production

carrying fever, lies, hypocrisy.

 

Five hundred thousand dead Indonesians

concentration camps in Europe,

exiles beside the Acropolis.

 

But you don’t hear,

you don’t see.

On a 1969 model, 

you ride at 200 kilometers per hour

towards your death.

 

1962

The Dream

Mother, you had two sons,

two trees, two rivers,

two Venetian castles,

two mint bushes, two joys.

 

One went to the East

the other to the West

and you alone between them

speak, you ask the sun:

 

Sun, who sees the mountains

who sees the rivers too,

wherever you see our troubles

and mothers who are poor,

 

If you see Pavlos call me,

if you see Andreas, tell me.

I raised them with a sadness

I bore them with a sob.

 

But they leave mountains behind 

and cross the deep rivers.

Each one seeks the other

to fight him to the death.

 

And there on the highest peak

up on the highest ridge,

they lie beside each other

dreaming the same dream.

 

Both run to their mother

lying on her deathbed;

together they reach out

their hands to close her eyes

 

and they plunge their knives deep

down into the earth

and water gushes out

to drink, to quench one’s thirst.

 

1947

The House with the Scorpions

1984

The Journey

A single stride Petralona - Thission,

two strides Syngrou - Kaisariani

deep in my mind the archive

Sunday is always cloudy.

 

Don’t  look at me with brimming eyes

I have them stamped on my heart, 

our lost dreams.

 

Early in the morning I’ll go for a walk

I’ll take a distant road

I’ll say goodbye to my friends

I’ll stop to rest before dusk falls.

 

On my long journey

when I am alone with Death

I’ll smoke my last cigarette.....

 

1984

The Refrigerator

Don’t ask, my heart

don’t beat

bitterness, fairytales

are all over for us

 

On your telephone

all the numbers

have been omitted

a dead life.

 

If you have eyes that see

and if you have breasts that suffer

how can you bear it, won’t you tell me,

such a life without weeping?

 

Those who loved

lie dead,

those who knelt down

are leaders.

 

Open the refrigerator

and go inside

so you’ll stay fresh

so you’ll be preserved.

 

1963

The Rider in the Sky

The rider in the sky

appeared on the crest

holding the dawn in one hand

and in the other, my life.

 

The brave man, the brave man

he’ll come this evening at nine

help him, Christ and the Virgin!

 

The rider on the mountain

appeared in the narrow streets

holding thunderbolts in one hand

and in the other, sighs.

 

The rider of the sky

brings the dawn with him,

he brings the hand that scatters

and the other hand that reaps.

 

1968

The Slaughterhouse

1980

The Song of the Earth

You never heard

the song of the earth

nor will you hear it again.

You killed all the birds

the forests

the water

the shining water

the river.

Gone...

You killed the earth

the sun

your heart.

Never again will you see

the color of the sky

never again will you hear

the sound of the colors.

Like a gunshot you are heading for chaos.

For the last time let the song

of the Earth be heard in the silence.

Before I am finally wrapped in chaos

I’ll say “Good-bye!” to life.

 

Second Symphony, 1980

 

1967

The Sun and Time

1962

The Tango of Efialtis

Who doesn’t know Efialtis?

Efialtis was the first traitor!

Then treachery was still a sin!

Gods and men punished the traitor severely.

Who doesn’t know Efialtis?

Later treachery became a profession!

The traitors would go to work,

like the shop-keepers to their stores.

They sold their merchandise

and took their wages every month.

They married amongst each other

so as not to betray the lineage of the race!

And yet the whole world remembered

for so many years the story of Efialtis.

To the point where treachery became a virtue!

It became a duty

an honorable citation was decreed;

“In testimony to the great treachery

of the modest traitor, the fatherland

expresses its gratitude.”

Who remembers Efialtis any more?

 

1984

The Tenant

Sworn soldiers entered Kalavryta 

You know what awaits you, all black and iniquitous.

 

The soldiers of our times never take oaths

they’re all civilians with chauffeurs’ faces.

 

Generals and Pharisees entered my lodgings

I know what awaits me, I write on my paper.

 

I write my income and I subtract my rent

and at the bottom I even sign my conviction.

 

1984

The Traitor

I hunted the streets of Athens

 --I was a beardless youth then.

I had a pistol and a fine,

fearful optimism.

 

The leaders send me to find

a traitor who hung out in Gouva.

I find the house and knock on his door

and his mother welcomes me with a smile.

 

--Sit down, son, and rest yourself,

my son will be here any time now;

don’t judge us by our poverty

our hearts are still good.

 

I look at her, how to tell her

that I’ve come to kill her traitor son;

on the steaming blood of her child

I’ve come to build a new Greece!

 

1977

The Trap

Your hands were filled with songs

your feet touched the green water

your dreams strolled in the streets

your thought dictated the rhythm of the day.

 

The din of cars and neon signs

hid the echo in the poor quarters;

night howled in the muddy streets

two friends exchanged the sacred oath.

 

Who would have told you, the one in the cap

his burning eye, unkempt beard,

yellow spittle, blurry speech

that slid in the gut like burning iron?

 

You believed him and without another thought

entered the narrow street with no exit

who would have told you, the one in the cap?

He set you a sweet trap and now it’s too late.

 

Essen, 1977

 

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.

 

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.

 

 

1968

Time to See

They told you a pack of lies

they tell you lies again today

and tomorrow they’ll tell you lies again.

 

Your enemies tell you lies

But even your friends hide the truth from you.

 

Liars promise you false glory

but your friends lull you to sleep with false truths.

 

Where are you going with false dreams?

It’s time to stop,

time to sing,

time to weep and suffer,

time to see

 

1969

To the Unknown Poet

Righas Pheraios, I call on you, you!

From Australia to Canada

and from Germany to Tashkent

in prisons, in the mountains and islands

the Greeks are scattered.

 

Dionysios Solomos, I call on you, you!

Jailed and jailors

beaten and beaters

commanded and commanders

terrorizers and terrorized

occupiers and occupied

divided in two, the Greeks.

 

Andreas Kalvos, I call on you, you!

Brilliant, the sun marvels,

the mountains and the firs

the shores and the nightingales marvel.

Cradle of beauty and measure, my homeland

is now a place of death.

 

Kostas Palamas, I call on you, you!

Never was so much light turned to darkness,

so much bravery to fear,

strength to weakness,

so many heroes turned to marble busts.

Birthplace of Digenis and Diakos , my fatherland

now a land of slavery.

 

Nikos Kazantzakis, I cry out to you!

But if mortals who still speak

Androutsos’ tongue forget

then memory lives behind iron bars and sentry posts

memory lives in the stones

it nests in the yellow leaves

that cover your body, Greece.

 

Angelos Sikelianos, I call on you, you!

You are the soul of my homeland

polymorphic river

blind with blood

deaf with moans

incapacitated by hatred

and the great love

that jointly rules your soul.

 

The soul of my country is two handcuffs

squeezed into two rivers

two mountains bound with ropes

on the terrace bench. 

The Argive plain swollen from whipping

and Olympus hanging from the mast of the aircraft carrier

hands tied behind its back

until it confesses.

The soul of my homeland is this very seed

that spread roots on the rock.

You are mother, wife, daughter

looking out over the sea and the mountains

and secretly dyeing, with your blood

the red eggs of the Resurrection

fertilized by the times and by men.

 

If only the Easter of the Greeks

would come to my unhappy land!

 

Unknown poet, I call on you, you!

 

 

Arcadia VI     

1984

Vision

1968

We Are Two

We are two, we are two, the clock strikes eight

turn off the lights, the guard knocks, tonight they’ll come again.

 

one in front, the others behind

then silence and the same old story.

 

They strike twice, they strike three times, a thousand and thirteen;

you are in pain and so am I,  but which of us suffers more

only time will tell.

 

We are two, we are three, we are a thousand and thirteen

we ride on into time

in time, with the rain the blood clots on the wound

and pain becomes a nail.

 

Avenger, savior,

we are two, we are three, we are a thousand and thirteen.

 

1951

Whatever You Say

1968

When You Knock Twice

1968

You Are Greek

What you were once you will be again

you must become, you must weep.

 

So your humiliation can be complete,

so your conquest reaches the roots of the mountains.

 

You are Greek, you are Greek,

you drink betrayal with your milk,

you drink betrayal with your wine,

so that your humiliation can be complete.

 

You must see,

you must become.

 

What you were once

you will be again.

 

1987

Zero Street

--Ah, ah, ah, little bird

what are you looking for in Hermes Street?

--I have lost Beatrice,

perhaps she’s looking for a new hat with feathers.

 

 

--Ah, ah, ah, little bird

what are you looking for in Zero Street?

--Tomorrow Beatrice swears her oath

she’s the first citizen of Makryiannistan.

 

The brave lad of the sky

appeared in the lanes

He holds thunderbolts in one hand

And sighs in the other

The brave lad, the brave lad

He’ll come at nine in the evening

Christ and the Virgin help him.

 

--Ah, ah, ah, little bird

what are you looking for in Why Street?

--There is no Beatrice

if there were, you would never have seen me.