Shadow on my existance

Varos Dimitris poetry

                                                                                                ''Mind Games ''

I am a waterfall in the desert.

A rain from a cloudless sky. 

A well known but unborn child. 

An insistence experience 

that you never had. 

I play mind games with your brain. 

When you strike the keys and remember the sea 

I come as indefinable memory. 

When you look at your watch 

and the time has passed

you feel me like a fleeting hallucination.

I play mind games with your brain.

I’m nesting behind your eyes.

I’m ranging through your dreams.

You are finding me in all of your desires. 

In all of those are absent from you. 

I play mind games with your brain.

I stand in the places that you cannot reach. 

I exist where you cannot touch upon. 

But I am what you always waiting for 

I m what holds your life on. 

I play mind games with your brain. 

But I swear this is not a fun.

I feel unbearable loneliness. 

Because I do not have a body 

And you, that you have, refuse me yours.

translation is taken from: http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/dimitris_varos/poems/23550

Olive grove at afternoon in Koroni

Fokas Nikos poetry
Arizona

 A desert-scape; unbroken sand; sand lifeless; skin creeping
up to knees
Chest backsides shoulders; headless though, hence
uncommunicative
Just like the world – a part, part of the whole; sand open to
an undivided sky,
By tree or fowl unshaded, but for a human shadow a frame
wide enough . . .

Suddenly, something I related to before my eyes; two snakes,
entangled figures of eight,
Both creatures after all with heads, and therefore somewhat
more communicative than sand;
Like a mirage of animates they looked in the impassive
oneness of the desert
Dying they too like me against eternity as it were and
incorruption.(...)

Translation: Nikos Fokas & Don Schofield and John Theocharis

Calligraphy of waves

Fokas Nikos poetry
Summer '99

With my own free will, each morning I create
The vineyards and the olive groves as though on a black canvas,
– Just like a painter, leaving no gaps. From time to time
A colorful bird (that too my own invention)
Falls heavily on the foliage.
Like a kite out of the stillness.

Other creations, (open sea, sky, mountain slopes,
Visages of this land, parents and friends)
Through my free will they all appear perfectly natural
– While the breeze (yet another invention of mine)
Drifting across the face of the sea
Ruffles in places the seamless serenity. (...)

Translation: Nikos Fokas & Don Schofield and John Theocharis

High contrast of sentiment

Katerina Gogou

“Loneliness
does not have the saddened colour
of the cloudy bimbo in her eyes.
She does not stroll abstractly and self-content
Shaking her hips in concert halls
And in frozen museums.
She is not the yellow cadres of “good” old times
And naphthalene in granny’s chests
Rosy ribbons and straw hats.
She does not open her legs with fake small laughers
A cow’s gaze rhythmic sighs
And assorted underwear.
Loneliness
Has the colour of Pakistanis, this loneliness
And she is counted inch by inch
Along with their pieces
In the bottom of the light-shaft.
She stands patiently queuing
Bournazi – Santa Barbara – Kokkinia
Touba –Stavroupoli – Kalamaria
Under all weathers
With a sweaty head.
She ejaculates screaming and smashes the front windows with chains
She occupies the means of production
She blows up private property
She is a Sunday visit in prison
Same step in the yard revolutionaries and penal prisoners
She is sold and bought minute by minute, breath by breath
In the slave markets of the earth – Kotzia  is near here
Wake up early.
Wake up to see it.
She is a whore in the rotten-houses
The german drill for conscripts
And the last
Endless miles of the national highway towards the centre
In the suspended meats from Bulgaria.
And when her blood clots and she can take no more
Of her kind being sold so cheaply
She dances barefoot on the tables a zeibekiko
Holding in her bruised blue hands
A well sharpened axe.
Loneliness,
Our loneliness I say. Its our loneliness I am speaking about,
Is a axe in our hands
That over your heads is revolving revolving revolving revolving” 

Translated by Taxikipali : http://libcom.org/history/katerina-gogou-athens-anarchist-poetess-1940-1993

Olive grove III

...nor a silk bonnet for the head of a whale.
It is a saw from the sea that slaughters the gulls
a carpenter's cushion a beggar's clock
a fire in a gypsy's forge who seduces priests' wives and sings a lullaby for lilies
a marriage for Turks a celebration of Australians
a lair of Hungarians
where the hazelnut trees go to meet secretly in fall
they see the wise storks dying their eggs black
and they weep too
they burn their nightgowns and put on ducks' petticoats
they spread stars on the earth for kings to walk on
with their silver amulets with the crown and the purple
they spread rosemary on beds
so the mice will go to another cellar
go to other churches to eat the Holy Table
And the little owls pedia mou
the little owls shriek
and the dead nuns wake up to dance
with tambourine and fiddles with pipes and lutes
with pennants and incense with herbs and charms
wearing bears' britches in the frozen valley
they eat the ferrets' mushrooms
they play heads-or-tails for Ai' Yanni's ring and the Black's gold coin
they laugh at witches
they cut a priest's beard with the yatghan of Kolokotronis
they bathe in the mist from the incense
and later chanting they go slowly down under the earth and are silent
like waves are silent like the dawn cuckoo like the evening lamp
that's how the grape withers in a deep jar and an apple yellows in the bell
tower of a fig tree
how the summer sighs
with a loud necktie in the grape arbor
how my gentle love all bare in the white cherry blossoms
rests with her head in the crook of her arm and her hand over her gold coin
in its morning's warmth when silently as a thief
dawn comes over the windowsill of spring to waken her!


Gatsos Nikos poetry: ''Amorgos", part 4
Translation:
Copyright © Diana Gilliland Wright,October 2007.

Οὔτε μεταξωτὴ φορεσιὰ γιὰ τὸ κεφάλι τῆς φάλαινας.
Εἶναι πριόνι θαλασσινὸ ποὺ πετσοκόβει τοὺς γλάρους
Εἶναι προσκέφαλο μαραγκοῦ εἶναι ρολόι ζητιάνου
Εἶναι φωτιὰ σ’ ἕνα γύφτικο ποὺ κοροϊδεύει τὶς παπαδιὲς καὶ νανουρίζει
τὰ κρίνα
Εἶναι τῶν Τούρκων συμπεθεριὸ τῶν Αὐστραλῶν πανηγύρι
Εἶναι λημέρι τῶν Οὕγγρων
Ποὺ τὸ χινόπωρο οἱ φουντουκιὲς πᾶνε κρυφὰ κι ἀνταμώνουνται
Βλέπουν τοὺς φρόνιμους πελαγροὺς νὰ βάφουν μαῦρα τ’ αὐγά τους
Καὶ τόνε κλαῖνε κι αὐτὲς
Καῖνε τά νυχτικά τους καὶ φοροῦν τό μισοφόρι τῆς πάπιας
Στρώνουν ἀστέρια καταγῆς γιὰ νὰ πατήσουν οἱ βασιλιάδες
Μὲ τ’ ἀσημένια τους χαϊμαλιὰ μὲ τὴν κορώνα καὶ τὴν πορφύρα
Σκορπᾶνε δεντρολίβανο στὶς βραγιὲς
Γιὰ νὰ περάσουν οἱ ποντικοὶ νὰ πᾶνε σ’ ἄλλο κελλάρι
Νὰ μπούνε σ’ ἄλλες ἐκκλησιὲς νὰ φᾶν τὶς Ἅγιες Τράπεζες
Κι οἱ κουκουβάγιες παιδιά μου
Οἱ κουκουβάγιες οὐρλιάζουνε
Κι οἱ πεθαμένες καλογριὲς σηκώνουνται νὰ χορέψουν
Μὲ  ντέφια τούμπανα καὶ βιολιὰ μὲ πίπιζες καὶ λαγοῦτα
Μὲ φλάμπουρα καὶ μὲ θυμιατὰ μὲ βότανα καὶ μαγνάδια
Μὲ τῆς ἀρκούδας τὸ βρακὶ στὴν παγωμένη κοιλάδα
Τρῶνε τὰ μανιτάρια τῶν κουναβιῶν
Παίζουν κορώνα-γράμματα τὸ δαχτυλίδι τ´ Ἁη-Γιαννιοῦ καὶ τὰ φλουριὰ
τοῦ Ἀράπη
Περιγελᾶνε τὴς μάγισσες
Κόβουν τὰ γένια ἑνὸς παπᾶ μὲ τοῦ Κολοκοτρώνη τὸ γιαταγάνι
Λούζονται μὲς στὴν ἄχνη τοῦ λιβανιοῦ
Κι ὕστερα ψέλνοντας ἀργὰ μπαίνουν ξανὰ στὴ γῆ καὶ σωπαίνουν
Ὅπως σωπαίνουν τὰ κύματα ὁπως ὁ κοῦκος τὴ χαραυγὴ
ὅπως ὁ λύχνος τὸ βράδυ
Ἔτσι σ´ ἕνα πιθάρι βαθὺ τὸ σταφύλι ξεραίνεται καὶ στὸ καμπαναριὸ
μιᾶς συκιᾶς κιτρινίζει τὸ μῆλο
Ἔτσι μὲ μιὰ γραβάτα φανταχτερὴ
Στὴν τέντα τῆς κληματαριάς τὸ καλοκαίρι ἀνασαίνει
Ἔτσι κοιμᾶται ὁλόγυμνη μέσα στὶς ἄσπρες κερασιὲς μιὰ τρυφερή μου ἀγαπη
Ἕνα κορίτσι ἀμάραντο σὰ μυγδαλιᾶς κλωνάρι
Μὲ τὸ κεφάλι στὸν ἀγκώνα της γερτὸ καὶ τὴν παλάμη πάνω στὸ φλουρί της
Πάνω στὴν πρωινή του θαλπωρὴ ὅταν σιγὰ-σιγὰ σὰν τὸν κλέφτη
Ἀπό τὸ παραθύρι τῆς ἄνοιξης μπαίνει ὁ αὐγερινὸς νὰ τὴν ξυπνήσει̣!


 Γκάτσος Νίκος "Αμοργός", Πατάκη 2009, 13η έκδοση, σελ. 11-13

Olive grove at the edge of the world

  Fokas Nikos poetry

Ocean

 I avoid the coastline like a shark.
When a bulge
           of land appears
           gaining depth and perspective
           like an embryo gradually forming
The details steadily multiplying until
           as in Creation
Man arrives at last, and human families
           start moving about
           endowed with cinematic quality,
Even before I discern an individual’s
           eyes, nose or mouth,
Though I too an anthropomorphic
I take to the open sea.

Olive grove II

...If you are thirsty for water we will wring out a cloud
and if you are hungry for bread we will butcher a nightingale
only the bitter herb waits a moment to open
the dark sky to lighten the mullein to flower
Yet it was a wind that fled a lark that was lost
it was the face of May the pale face of the moon
a light step like skipping in a the field
a kiss from the white crests of the sea. (...)
 
Gatsos Nikos poetry: ''Amorgos"
Translation:
Copyright © Diana Gilliland Wright,October 2007.
 


                                                                           




Κι ἂν θὰ διψασεις γιὰ νερὸ θὰ στύψουμε ἕνα σύννεφο
Κι ἂν θὰ πεινάσεις γιὰ ψωμὶ θὰ σφάξουμε ἕνα ἀηδόνι
Μόνο καρτέρει μιὰ στιγμὴ ν´ ἀνοίξει ὁ πικραπήγανος
Ν´ ἀστράψει ὁ μαῦρος οὐρανὸς νὰ λουλουδίσει ὁ φλόμος.
Μὰ ήταν ἀγέρας κι ἔφυγε κορυδαλλὸς κι ἐχάθη
Ήταν τοῦ Μάη τὸ πρόσωπο τοῦ φεγγαριοῦ ἡ ἀσπράδα
Ἕνα περπάτημα ἐλαφρὺ σὰ σκίρτημα τοῦ κάμπου.
Ἕνα φιλὶ τῆς της θάλασσας τῆς άφροστολισμένης.

Γκάτσος Νίκος "Αμοργός", Πατάκη 2009, 13η έκδοση, σελ. 19-20

Olive trees