Yánnis Varvéris
From: Invalid Miracle (1996)
Monologue on the Way Up
The hot weather's here again and I'm coming up the light shaft
I got through the long winter down in your cesspits
now I burst forth, from S-bends, unmended cracks
into the tupperware, the children's food
provisions for the Third World War, I burst forth
oh two-legged cockroaches, I got by, you see,
because there was never a rubbish-bag
could hold its secrets
tight enough
now I'm on the way up
charitably you'll have forgotten
a little crud on some pot or pan.
old women as you are, and tired
or young and in a hurry
oh, I know, I've been trained, it's all a matter of luck
I might be betrayed by my so-called ally the light-switch
enveloped in clouds of insect spray, be found by
some crafty and agile slipper
victim, I, like so many of my race
who fell unsung
in the steamboats, kitchens, and harbours of the ages
I know, such as I am, that a brown stain
on the wall of your life would disgust you
I don't care. I shall rise, I am coming, I'm on the way up,
and if
armies on armies follow,
eggs, eggs, eggs, eggs, egg-cases
as Eastern roaches, German, American
have spoken secretly into my cells
your terrified naturalists have ascertained
that with or without your mushroom
some day the supermarkets shall be ours, I'm coming up
prepare yourselves, Ladies and Gentlemen
spray me, stamp on me, flatten me,
daft and deaf, you do not hear
in this my miniscule scuttle
the trillion drums of victory.'
Translated by Simon Darragh
Page(s) 145
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The