robert frank

[a piece in greek, about robert frank - on the occasion of the 50th anniversary edition of the americans.]

suddenly

[a translation in greek of sylvia plath's 'sheep in fog', chanced upon in the faber & faber 2009 diary.]

the lifesaver

splash! [in bookshop sea]



[this print by monika zawadzka adorns the cover]

thom gunn: 9 poems

[greek translations of nine poems by thom gunn, originally published in 'poiesi' poetry journal.]

robert creeley: 14 poems

[translations in greek of fourteen poems by robert creeley, originally published in 'poiesi' poetry journal.]

darling i'm clearing up

darling i'm clearing up
it's cold here - and there?
i'm pulling up my hair pulling up
my hands, picking up the ribbons, the glitter
pencils, smiles - look:
pain went right through
the body called it in
the body waits - it wants/wanted to change
but it stays put
[pain will change it]
then it will go out, another
see? through a coloured
slit / then there's a ladder
and then everything's pink
[BLACK]
[wrong window]
start again -

darling i'm clearing out


Written in one go in a warm cafe in Stockholm's Sodermalm on an icy morning of October 2007. Eleni Theofilaktou had invited me to write a piece for her upcoming exhibition, "Darling, I'm clearing up" at 'tint' gallery in Thessaloniki, Greece (November 2007 - January 2008). She'd sent me photos of some of the works she'd be showing [e.g. the two below], we'd talked, I'd been keeping notes, mental as well as written. I sent the piece to her as a photo of the manuscript [above], since she'd liked the LLEL/LIR/LYR manuscript. She decided to make colour photocopies of it, which her show's visitors were free to take away with them.

[The english version is my own.]

the room

1.

From everywhere
I must be going

A space of freedom
the secret of encounter

I was looking around
I feared something else

2.

In order to make something together
they must first get to know each other
To get to know each other
they must first meet each other
(where they can escape
–below the window–
then separate again)

[marriage is pulsing under death]

(On the uncomfortable seats
–they do not face each other–
the things I do not want to happen
The body’s middle
the body’s centre
is sensitive
gets tired
with immobility)

They must write
There must be a reason or a cause (or an enigma)
on each other
the two bodies inside
I have to find what must be solved
a third
the two thoughts inside
the air draught

(door – window)

3.

The light is born
inside the room

as much water as pain

where
gradual abandonment
those who sawed
came to eat
where
they hoped what they buried
would appear

A sonorous and vain, monotonous line
there is no body, he is black
[and goes on
they are lowering her]

Couple, farewell – I go to see
the shade you have become

couple, farewell – I await
the light you bring/flee

I was trapped
there on the glass
[I think I’ll let her]

4.

He died
on her own she managed
silence
she desired
an unbearable movement
an entire man’s weight

The goblin tells her
’tis I who will teach you to draw
child
’tis I who will teach you to dance

You will be that woman once more
she wondered was it woman perhaps
that you don’t remember becoming
she couldn’t remember from what she should be saved
once more that girl
you were ashamed to be

dazzling
I will marry you
confirmation
you will bear me children
you will feed them
Every morning
letters and lines
her own (only)

5.

Even in the obscurity
of Thou
–an addressable Thou–
there still exists
the possibility
of meeting
oneself

(There always belonged
to the poem’s hopes
that it might speak
also about
the entirely Other)

I cannot see what’s first and then what follows
how one prepares oneself
to die
this march has started
I don’t have a voice and what I want
to say does not exist

6.

For hours now I’d been thinking to begin

This is not the place
Nowhere is the place

In this in-between space

(between two
air and water)

place of liberation
of free oscillation

(between
body and thought
you and the Other
between the two)

in statu nascendi
in statu moriendi
(pause of breath)

There’s the foundation:
with no soil

The poem stands on itself
man also

it must
(life, you must pass through)
still be

Language becoming form
present

The poem lonely and en route
is already inside
the secret of the encounter

7.

Stone turns into feather
when air turns into water

I choose not to choose



Written for the installation LLEL / LIR / LYR, a collaboration with Maria Konti during “blind date #12” (Industrial Space, Keiriadon & Sfittion, Athens, December 2006). It was born out of several meetings and conversations with M.K..

Phrases in italics are from her texts. My own text incorporates, paraphrased or intact, phrases by: M. K., Stephane Mallarme, Robert Musil, Paul Celan, Peggy Pheelan.

The text was presented as a manuscript, written on two folding sheets composed of seven pages each. My text was on white paper, and, on top of it, the fragments of phrases from previous texts by M.K. (transcribed in italics above), written on tracing paper.


[The two no. 4 pages: left, the tracing paper. Their synthesis gives rise to section 4 above. They also appear, superimposed, at the centre of the photograph below.]

These fragments, coming from passages by M.K. I had already underlined, were traced exactly in the position where they occurred in the original. Consequently, their position with respect to the text ‘below them’ and on which they were ‘projected’ was a matter of chance.



The two ‘septifold’ sheets were secured with tape on one of their two sides to a long working table found in the industrial space itself, so that the tracing paper covered the writing paper – one could, however, lift it. In front of the table, two stools allowed two visitors to sit in front of the text. In addition, strips of paper bearing the work’s rectangular stamp, ‘LLEL/LIR/LYR’, were at the viewers’ disposal, who could write on them whatever they wished.



As they sat, to their far right hang a drawing by M.K. [selective tracing, with blue carbon sheet on old paper, of a blown up copy of Hans Holbein the Younger’s Portrait of a 39-year old man],



while at the far back, could be seen three brown chalk drawings, also by M.K., that we had executed jointly, under her instructions, directly on the wall.



[The english version and the photographs are my own.]

lost

this photograph was presented during "lookout" [athens, september 2003]. it was projected on the wall of a block of flats near the junction of kallirois ave. and vouliagmenis ave..

utop[oe]ia

this piece -a composite of two photographs- was presented at the "capturing utopia" group show ['fournos', athens, september 2005].

seamus heaney: 4 poems

[greek translations of four poems by seamus heaney, originally published in 'anti' magazine in 1995 -the week following the announecement of his award of the nobel prize- and 1997 - following one of his visits in athens.]

andrew motion, 'independence'

[greek translation of andrew motion's 'independence', originally published in 'poiesi' poetry journal.]

spring's treefellers

I like you because I don't know where I’ll find you

Always half in the light
the other half in the dark
–hesitating between
beauty and wonder
between yourself and your true face–
waiting for me to fall
to finally choose
the side that you also already know
but will only tread together with me

*

Darkness now gathers
around us love thickens
it won't be long before
thin bashfulness slips off you

*

Going back to your place at midnight
a young mother, dizzy
still drinking – face bruised
child in her arms
kept picking up his teddy-bear
from the filthy train floor
you said My mum would never do this

After we got there, I stroked you into sleep

Then with your body
spooned around mine
I was trying to fit in your slumber's embrace

Going home the next day
I saw in the street
spring's tree-fellers

*

Few hours later I'm already losing your face
I try to keep hold of likenesses
– the picture escapes me

Sometimes I manage
to assemble your smile
on the armchair's red cloth
Then I'm struck by two lines
descending bitter to the mouth
and then I think I've found you
on magazine pages
– staring over the shoulder
with a blue heart tattoo

And I ask when you hug me again
if you can recall me – you turn with that face
half in light and you smile
Ask me again when it's dark



[The english version is my own; the original greek was first published in 'Poiesi' literary review (v.13, Spring-Summer 1999), and is included in To Sosivio [The Lifesaver] (Kastaniotis Editions, 2008)]