COLD WAR

Turn off the lights
Secure the door
The windows are closed
And turn on the radio that plays military raids.

Bring to the walls and put crepes
Gather breads and make rusks
Wholesalers collected the oils
We will eat fish with the scales.

November 1952

*

FOUR POEMS FOR ELENI

1

Of all the women who were on the island
the one that was absent was the most beautiful.

2

What if I kept your head in the water
and trying to erase you
in a foreign bed and new habits
it was because I loved you so much
and I was very scared
do not leave me.

3

And the monkey crouched behind the door knob
in a week under the lamp
on the way to the hospital
silence, planks and workers’ acetylene
on the injured sidewalks
on this street with the lamp
a foreign demonic look
in your eyes
I held Eleni’s flesh tightly
with the foreign gaze
to panic me.

4

Leave as much as the steppe
free of bells and vegetation.

*

THE SPIES

I am not afraid of the current of the rivers, the vigil and the blade
Only the messengers
And the ladies who spy behind prams
in your diava.

As for the spiders, I am scared of their silent walking
And that metaphysical ability to stand on the ceiling
Watching your thought with a dark eye
Without making the slightest sound.

*From the collection “Death in Kaningos Square” (“Θάνατος στην Πλατεία Κάνιγγος”), 1975. Translation: Dimitri Troaditis – George Mouratidis. These poems published here: https://www.kalliopex.com/feature-poet-tasos-denegris/