PHOEBE GIANNISI
ΧΧΧΙΙ
The sea immovable sea
turned to steam steaming azure
overseen by mountains flat unmoving sea
still ships lifted up
you will suck them in o sea you’ll spit them out
onto dry land you’ll break them
the immobile ships
now you receive them up in the sky
suspended by threaded ropes
invisible cords
the ships hang my heart is hovering
LXIX
Only in the mirror
can I see my ass
And, even so, not properly
Only in the mirror
can I see my face
Even though, that too,
is, in truth impossible to see
(Loops, Nefeli 2005)
(translated by Konstantine Matsoukas)
INMEMORIAM
come on now don’t try to avoid me you said I’m thinking of something I said it’s nothing that important really you have a nice hand I don’t remember anything from those days you said neither do I nor do you remember once upon a time years and years in the same building sometimes I wake up in my sleep and I have Had a dream I said somewhere in there it’s at the same time the same and not the same like in all dreams it corresponds to the truth then but also to this one now in my head though it is also a lie you are you said you just like anything if anything is because all the old stories no longer exist I said they do not exist even if we remember them what we remember is therefore the same or it is other I know that what I know happened it’s the details that are missing I said details don’t provide an outline no they are the outline you said being expelled from school in the year before last skirt blouse student uniforms I said you certainly wouldn’t fall in love then you said yes I would I said and had been already at one point I got expelled I said though it’s of no importance what with winter coming and summer over we have to go into the classrooms we have to get the notebooks you didn’t wear a school uniform I said you did you said time is passing amid all the noise Antigone refuses to leave the brother outside the walls she is raised against successive humiliations I said forgotten half-forgotten successive and then iambs triumphs equally forgotten in the schoolyard chats with classmates secrets more alive than facts bells ringing outgrowing of clothes let’s go to the sea you said whatever I leave behind cannot be retrieved again I don’t want to collect the parts now expulsions returns fair lovers secret corners cries illusive nests voices moments vigilance and silence inside and out always the seasons balconies anticipations maps on the walls blackboards let’s go I said come on you said let’s go I said I’m leaving you said in here I said outside you said always I said at that point in time you said now now
(translated by Konstantine Matsoukas)
(Orpheus)
thrown into the now
with the force of yesterday and tomorrow you are singing
voice
of spring
air loaded with scents
from somewhere else and from here and from what is coming
that is what we are expecting to hear the approaching
loaded but light
as light and full
flies and sings
your head
washed ashore by the waves
giving cadence to the oarsmen
with it they sing and row
while it’s driving
the fish to the surface the fish
into the dark tenebrous depths of sea
dolphins
lions beasts of the land
stop to hear
in the evening sun
the gypsy turns off the megaphone
brown soil red soil he shouts
soil for every balcony
goes around selling
while in the dusk
the strong and bewildering scent of the plant called “angelica”
the lukewarm breeze is bringing
his own angelica Euridice
with his own soil embraced he thinks
and sings without stopping to rest
knowing that when he is silent
he can only turn his head back
to look at the things that have passed
and disappear
he and she and the spring sun
and the next most beautiful summer
from “Homerica” Kedros 2009
(Translation by Katerina Iliopoulou and Edward Smallfield)
(Achilles)
the boat DREAM is on sale
the tugboat ACHILLES is looking at
STARLET straight in the eyes
and nobody has ever seen
PRINCE ABDOUL CHAZIZ
from Jordan set sail
ablaze at night
the palace is at anchor all year long
the king is absent
sixty five men
ghosts of the harbour
keep and wash it night and day
endlessly tend to the ship
and on the opposite side
you I can see you even today
mending nets inside the big fishing boats
ten in each
today sunday a day of rest before the full moon
you do domestic work like me
bent over your purple needlework
listening to music from the radio
every man a cup of tea and a radio
bending over you needle and mend
with eyes red weary
dark-skinned men with woollen sweaters
nobody here wears them
under the clouds your silence
and rain
the men from Africa
they said they only know of water
born inside water
sweet water not salty I say riding the bicycle
water of the Nile egyptian
and I say also
your hands hard frozen
from the cold of my country northern to you
fishing in our waters
patiently tending every year
waiting for the time
to return to Africa
when fishing stops for a bit when the drifters
come out
migratory birds swallows
return to their own water
their women
the earthen houses beside the river
although at this point I must ask
what is the place of the immigrant
There or Here
the origin or the arrival
how could he inhabit the Name
he who before now was nobody
from “Homerica” Kedros 2009
Translated by Katerina Iliopoulou and Andrew Maxwell
(Voracious)
people speed through their lives
obsessed with consuming
devouring music
one another
the light of dusk
is before me and I don’t see it
out of impatience I greedily devour
out of fear
chasing time
my children before they grow up
to make time
to swim to get out to get a tan
to look at you to touch you to smell you
to inhale you to forget you
to eat all the crumbs
so the birds
like charity
are the last excuse
for abundance
Trans. Vassilis Manoussakis and Valerie Coulton
from “Homerica” Kedros 2009
(Thetis)
she who plants herself
perhaps
always she who plants
and as we know
she who refused to be supplanted
to surrender to a man
becoming
fire water wind
tree tiger bird
becoming
lion snake cuttlefish
until one day at Cape Sepia a mortal
held her tightly
with a steady grip conquered his prey
and through love consumed her
leaving only her white bone
the cuttlefish bone on the beach
washed clean by waves
Thetis is no longer there
she is blowing a bullhorn from the depths
of the sea
a cone a big shell echoing
these words that say
“despite all the ink I squirted
a man has devoured me
me a goddess he a mortal”
the warrior always comes back dead
translation Joseph Mosconi, Richard Pierce
from “Homerica” Kedros 2009
(Prize or Patroclus I )
respect and honor are what humans desire most of all
for what they are and what they deserve
I deserve honor and I will not beg for it
said achilles to agamemnon when he took away his prize
his gift of honor
and to odysseus he also said
he may have power but I am
the best among the achaeans
don’t let him think I’ll bow my head
and that’s what achilles said the first
the only time the king
took his honor away
and death
so heavy
was the toll
I have already endured several insults
public honor
for a mistress is not appropriate
you said I’m doing you a favor
listen now
a whole afternoon
today
I was waiting for you
and I patroclus
am speaking to you now and saying
you are merciless thetis cannot be your mother
the sea and the rocks
gave birth to you
achilles
so come eat a cuttlefish
at our table
but afterwards I want you to fuck me
the way I deserve it
Translation Joseph Mosconi, Richard Pierce
from “Homerica” Kedros 2009
(Penelope, I_am addicted to you)
She is crazy about the pool
Every day in the pool up and down
The same course up and down
The pool is keeping her alive
Swimming in the pool sustains her
The continuous to and fro
The rhythmical respiration
The coordination hands legs
With the head
In and out in a and out
Of the water
The head
Repeatedly enters and exits
Blows in blows out the air
The pauses here and there in the lanes
The tiles under the surface in
The light
The foreign bodies threatening
With bathing caps and flippers
Water full of chlorine
Sky above the cypresses
The pool is keeping me alive
The continuous song
The counting
One two tree four five
Six seven eight nine fifteen
Nineteen blows and spins
The song of counting repetition transfixes
The pool song is saving me
Saving me from the knowledge that
He doesn’t love me
(translation Katerina Iliopoulou and Andrew Maxwell)
from “Homerica” Kedros 2009
(Penelope II)
a woman’s life contains life
but gods you do know
never time
the woman forgets
her own war
she exchanges it for a moment in front of
the wave she exchanges it for a moment inside
the wave she exchanges time for tissues
jewelry songs
each woman is a weaver
a singer
but suddenly
the wave spits her up
on the shore
naked
without jewelry without armor speechless
and luckily then
she has to go back
she has to cook
translated by Edward Smallfield
from “Homerica” Kedros 2009
Train Athens-Volos 3-11-07
(Penelope III)
For Eleonora
she adores her kids
when they were small
she finished up the food
from their dishes
she still eats what’s left over
and now
though her daughter is taller than she is
she wears her clothes
when she has dirtied them
and thrown them into the laundry basket
she wears her little socks
and goes to work
she borrows what’s soiled
can it be that she economizes on the wash or
that the amulet is active
only
when it retains the body
our own most unique vestige
the scent of secretions
translated by Edward Smallfield
from “Homerica” Kedros 2009
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