Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume II

Warmth

Truly, how is that captain doing? Would he be sleeping
in the water
with his hat in his hands looking like a dead jellyfish?
Since then we haven’t gone down to the sea again.
The harbour was bombed. Nothing remained standing.
Only, they said, a boat plank that had written on it
I love you was floating in the rough seas. Your hands
are freezing. Are you cold?
Perhaps that captain is not sleeping in the water and surely
our glances must have been saved in his binoculars, like
sunlit landscapes of a Greek summer. They could warm him.
He wouldn’t be cold.
Come, then, wipe your eyes. When one sees the world like
that, warmly, I tell you, he will never feel cold. Your hands
got warmer.
The moon has risen from among the clouds — it greets us
like the captain’s hat. What you see and you’re smiling?
The sky cleared up; a piece of it lights the window —
youngish sky gleaming
like the new soldier’s head shaven by the barber.
When we all had the first army hair cut we were all alike —
that saddened us
you couldn’t tell one from the other, only Petros was different
with his clear laughter — his teeth shown like the almonds
mother used to make sweets at Christmas time and the rooms
smelled of vanilla and rose water. We all look alike tonight,
in the autumn sky.
We all look alike before death tonight.
A star jumps from glance to glance as the sparrow
jumps from one snowed branch to the other.
We all look alike before hope, comrade. Morning will come
when I’ll hold your hand and both our hands will get warm.

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The Circle

excerpt

IT’S EARLYMORNING and Hakim is pacing his apartment, waiting for the coffee
to brew and for Jennifer to get up. His thoughts are with Ibrahim and Mara as
well as with Talal and Emily in Baghdad; he hasn’t heard from them since
yesterday when they sent a message that they had arrived safely. His mind is also
occupied with the upcoming meeting in the office; he needs to meet with Peter
to plan a strategy ahead the meeting.
He looks at his watch; it’s already ten in the morning, which means it is nine
in the evening in Baghdad. They must be finished with dinner by this time he
thinks; he logs onto the computer and sends a message.
“Hello there, my uncle, is anybody around?”
The answer comes more quickly than expected.
“Hello to you, my dearest son. Yes, we are all around; we have just finished
dinner. How is your morning in Los Angeles?”
He smiles happily as he finds them all in the house. He wants Jennifer to
exchange words with Emily.
“How did the day go for your guests, my uncle? How’s Mara?”
“We’re all okay. Talal and Emily are doing very well; they went to Falluza today.
I’ll get Talal over to talk to you; goodnight for now,” Ibrahim types.
“Thankyou, my uncle. My kisses to both you and Mara.”
Hakim goes into the bedroom and finds Jennifer half asleep; he gets her up.
“Come on, sweetie, come talk to your mom. I have them online; come on.”
Jennifer excitedly gets up and Hakim goes back to the computer to talk to Talal.
“Hey, how are you?”
“Hey, to you, too; I’m fine. I met my siblings earlier today; my sister is a pretty,
young woman and she is getting married this summer. My brother works here and
there; he is okay. How are you?”
“Everything is fine. How’s your home in Falluza?”
“We didn’t go there; the next time, I guess.”
“Okay, I wish you well. Get Emily to talk to Jennifer.”
Emily comes and sits at the computer and types, “Hi, sweetheart. How are you
and Hakim?”
“We’re okay, mom. How is Iraq?”

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In the Quiet After Slaughter

excerpt

– Do you suppose it’s safe? she’d asked Harold.
– Going to the corner store ain’t safe nowadays. He glanced at the
photo on the mantle.
Harold had worked at the refinery since his last year of high
school. He made night foreman just after Harold Jr. came along. To
him, driving more than 100 kilometres represented a safari.
Their guide Karen repeated the admonition about the curfew
before landing, the lights of the ancient capital twinkling below,
Winnie’s eardrums beginning to throb the way she was told they
might at Orientation. Most members of the group weren’t paying
attention. They were too busy filling out Customs declarations and
making room in carry-on luggage for the duty-free booze.
Harold reminded her that the curfew didn’t apply to visitors. As
long as they restricted their partying to the designated entertainment
district.
– How hard could that be?
Now, perched by the window of their musty double occupancy
at the Hotel Intercontinental, Winnie watched the populace race
to clear the street. In the minutes leading up to the 11 p.m. curfew,
all was pandemonium. Shops were shut, lights extinguished,
frantic people were charging every which way. By 11:01 there was
a spooky calm.
She soon learned of exceptions to the decree. While waiting up for
Harold she watched the prostitutes and their clients stagger from
the cabarets, red-faced Western men with money, petite Asian girls
without. She heard their inebriated shenanigans in the hallway,
tired heels tapping on the cobbled streets at sunrise.
However minutely, however distastefully, wealth had been
redistributed overnight: petite Asian girls with money, Westerners
with a powerful burning sensation . . . Also exempt from the curfew
were the blind masseurs. Their soothing grips were summoned
by those weary of temple tours and museums. They made
their way along the deserted avenues of the foreign quarter, in one
hand a bamboo walking stick, the other clamped onto the shoulder
of a child handler.
It was while Winnie was observing these proceedings unfold
under her window that she noticed the boy from the market,
sunglassed employer in tow. She pried open the shutter…

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Rodica Marian – Poems

THE FACE AND THE LIKENESS
Every time I wake up, astonished, in the street, in the fields,
I recognize no flower
From the pile of plants covering me,
I do not know how many dead souls I carry with me,
(a blue and jealous cypress holds me by the shoulders),
While the child who could have been mine,
Low-spirited and dull, tugs my sleeve,
And somebody steps into my shoes,
I, who am less than the image
Of what could represent the gait,
As I wonder,
Ceaselessly,
From where I learnt this bizarre habit
And how is it that I can hear
Something that surprises me every hour, every day,
While I take the only way of
Identifying alterity
And the limit of Godliness finds me,
Unerring, in an anemone, in a hyacinth,
I am met with chivalrous meanness
By the greeting of the crippled man, brutalized by lack of sleep
and washing,
“Good day, my immaculate Lady!”

O misunderstood Catalina, always engrossed in thoughts,
You deprive yourself of life and death,
in your soul is your absence from them,
then you can feel
the tiring and the sweet eternity,
the Morning Star still hopes for,
you hesitant; he, a still cold sun.

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