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Vol. 36 No 3-4
Greek Poetry: New Voices and Ancient Echoes

Spring 1999

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Michális Ganás

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From: Ballad (1993)


Days come where I forget my name.

Come rainy nights cotton mists 
flour turns to grain then cornstalk 
pungent July with many scythes 
rustles in the midst of winter.
I see the fabric of the world unravel 
the hand that untwines it invisible 
and I tremble lest the thread be cut.
Thread of water warp without memory 
transparent drop on moss and lichen 
snow-down on the hills
deciduous hailstones
and suddenly a warm diver
in the ark of the womb.
Archaic night melts and grinds 
unmade the flame that licks it.

Assemblies of water forebears glaciers 
still in the hoarfrost of anonymity.
[...]

I was searching for a mother 
with nine daggers at her side 
and a single daughter.

I find her among the basil 
among five evil dreams 
and an evergreen.

If only a downpour would
come and rouse Constantine 
sending him homeward soaked.

For her to dry his clothes
and berate him in soft tones...
[...]

Night of the Cimmerians. Abrupt descent
I follow blindly the black ram.
No branch or root to grab onto
my bones creaking.
The air carries here and there the smell of dry laurel 
and a bat like a kerchief frightens me.

This is no place for children — what am I doing 
here with my short pants and shaved head
calling out 'mother' with anguished cries.
No response.
Unless the smell
of sweaty armpits responds 
and the odour from the room
where we used to store the apples
the way it smelled on December 20, 1957
Tuesday afternoon
outside it started to snow...

She fished me out!
I feel the hook from sobbing
and the blood in my throat is sweet 
I am left dangling on the line 
bleeding all night long
from deep-cut memories I was sure had healed and closed.
[...]

I am locked in my body at night
pregnant with your body.
But how can I fashion the limbs I desire 
that I see but have never touched before.

Blind in both my hands.
*
I mould you little by little each night. 
Day arrives and I'm torn down with you.

Never will I see you complete.
Nor hold you. Each time
your limbs newly made and scattered. 
I've become omnipotent for you
not a god.
What will I do with such omnipotence 
when the miracle is not permitted.
*
You stand behind the railing and I haven't my full
of seeingyou. I'm afraid something may go wrong and 
I'll lose you. Crystal camera-eye freezes the frame
but in your place a cypress grows.
Ablaze no birds.
The torrent of smoke rustles filling
the sky with foam and here we are say on Skoufa street 
and you are trying on skirts.
I bend over and kiss you on the mouth. You were wearing 
black lipstick I am daubed lips like dusk coming on while 
with a vague smile blond your yes clouded you vanish. 
You were never blond.
And I awoke.
*
I do not know if these glances 
will ever turn to gestures.
These hands staring at me
pointing at me every night. 
Firing at me.

Let me fall wounded
so long as I fall beside you.
To sleep one night at your side
and let desire become a sweet fatigue 
our skin lands of chlorophyll.
[...]


Translated by Avi Sharon

Page(s) 48-51

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