Yánnis Patílis
From: The Scribe's Mirror (1989)
Argo
For just a pack of cigarettes
An afternoon beer outside Orchomenos
A dusty sunset between two buses,
I'll do whatever you demand, dear Reader
The Wandering Rocks and Sirens are mere routine
The summary of Orpheus, a midnight bar like a dogpound
Scylla and Charybdis, sheer tedium
And Polydeuces, just a suburban karate school
But this fatigue, like any other working man's
Departing twice a month from Colchis
Caressing small Golden Fleece souvenirs,
I shall remain where you left me last
Temporarily exhausted between two more feats
As if among the furniture of an exhausted move
All but your chair whose loss, of course,
You no longer have cause to fear
As you once did, remember?
When uninvited you suddenly saw me in your room
Avenger
With a blackened stare, one-sandaled vagabond.
Summer 1989
Translated by Stathis Gourgouris
Page(s) 68-69
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