POEMS
THE KERAMEIKOS TORTOISE
If you are lucky, like me,
and find yourselves in April among the graves of Kerameikos,
all of a sudden you may see her
swishing and swaying
through the green shamrocks.
And if the grave steles around you stay still
and if Dexileos on his horse revels in his death,
even if you are moved by the art of silence only,
pay a little attention to
the miracle God painted on her carapace,
yet even more
her stubborn, indifferent crawling to the graves.
(Tortoise the Greek,
homeland of mine, tardy sculpture, passing by Hades.)
The Kerameikos Tortoise, Gabrielidis 2011
(Translated by Vasso Oikonomidou)
INSIDE THE WHISPER
And if all of our places have gone,
I feel while sitting
on the wooden bench
here in the shade of the fig tree
staring at the aquatile plants
which flood the Eridanus banks
I feel that there is a strange ‘nostos’
for it’s the time souls come out
outside time,
far from time,
and free
from forms caged
in time
they make oleanders bend
and myrtles wave
and always ask for the mystical signs
so that the memory of water shivers
so that recognition comes.
(Emigration lurks outside
With its shrill sounds;
Here, inside the whisper, lives our deepest homeland)
The Kerameikos Tortoise, Gabrielidis 2011
(Translated by Vasso Oikonomidou)
BIOGRAPHY
I was born in Alexandria in Egypt
of a father refugee from Minor Asia.
Others go to their villages on festivals
yet my nostos is fulfilled
with scents of heavy spices
and cheap perfumes,
whenever the road leads me to
‘Neilos’ store
to buy a little bit of return,
in Arabic bread.
A river full of races irrigates Athinas Street.
Syrians and Egyptians and Iraqis,
Kurds, Chinese and Nigerians
are not the etherial Cavafian figures any more,
they are the colourful birds of foreign lands and migration;
singing in thousand languages, speaking in thousand languages:
common is the request; for bread, for water
and for nostos of the soul in the land of deep memory.
The Metro, Kedros 2004 (Translated by Vasso Oikonomidou)
THE ARCHAIC KOUROS
He didn’t lose his ghastly, unearthly ‘smile’
even when in the ground
facing downwards
-this was his posture when he was found-
even when in the ground
served as material for fortifying
the Themistokleian wall.
He’s now standing upright
a splendid sample of archaic sculpture
bright masterpiece of 7th century Art.
Don’t think of beauty that always triumphs
look only at Kouros moving forward,
with a mutilated leg,
soaring over the grey dust
consoling the humbled
-like the pride of the sky that blossoms in the ground.
The Kerameikos Tortoise, Gabrielidis 2011
Η Τασούλα Καραγεωργίου διαβάζει από τη συλλογή Η χελώνα του Κεραμεικού, Γαβριηλίδης 2011
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