Twelve Narratives of the Gyspsy

(Excerpt)

And there were two opposing

races battling with erotic

mania both yearning to embrace

the most beautiful city

on Bosporus, the only one

both races wanted and dressed

in their shiniest they kissed

the soil their soles stepped on

men fell like grasshoppers

like bees people went there.

And it was the most beautiful

city the between two seas,

an Aphrodite, a fairy, oh

you Constantinople, oh You!

And it was the orchard

of the world onto which, like

a single glory, the people’s

poles matched, where unsuitable

barbarians came from

the end of the earth to

the Roman Constantine

to battle it out under

Hellenic banners

Οι Σπονδές των αρχαίων Ελλήνων

Οι Σπονδές των αρχαίων Ελλήνων

George Seferis, Collected Poems

On A Ray Of Winter Light

6

One breath and then another, a gust

of wind as you put down the book

and you tear up useless bygone papers

or you lean to watch at the plain

graceful centaurs galloping

or nubile sweaty Amazons in all pleats of the body

who compete at jumping and wrestling.

Gusts of resurrection one dawn

that you thought the sun had risen.

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Twelve Narratives of the Gypsy

Ο Δωδεκάλογος του Γύφτου του Κωστή Παλαμά σε μετάφραση μου για πρώτη φορά στη Β. Αμερική. Το πιο δύσκολο έργο που έχω μεταφράσει ποτέ. Παρ’ όλα αυτά το αποτέλεσμα είναι υπέροχο όσο και το πρωτότυπο. /// The Twelve Narratives of the Gypsy, by Kostis Palamas, in my translation for the first time in N. America; the most difficult translation I’ve ever done. Yet the end result stands as gracefully and as beautifully as its original.

Jazra Khaleed, Η λέξη από γάμα

Jazra Khaleed, Η λέξη από γάμα