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

Spring 1999

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Stratís Pascális

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Comedy (1998)


Which one of us? Wide I go, broad 
I go; find me 
Petronius
 
that night I sensed events were drawing closer 
for the weather had changed dramatically 
the rain was heavier the lights fewer the days 
were lugubrious and slow 
and dreams spoke to me ever more distinctly 
* 

life a crack that opens and how the works exist 
like hallucinations — everything happens 
in a constant departure 
when we're freed from our two eyes 
and from thought's secret siege
* 

it's some time since I was visited by passions 
and I nestle in a room full of books 
just above the currents travelling the earth 
just below the spots where the dead settle down 
there are days when I hunger for the sheerest sensations 
those that the mind knows how to invent 
and so I feel as if I've become a recluse 
since I'm always leafing through cold empty textbooks 
and on the white pages I drip black bitter ink 
seeming like someone unconditional who's forgotten grief 
* 

it was two o'clock and the cricket cried out 

I looked then towards the ruins and the ugly houses 
and saw the extent of the mystical 
fully illuminated 
* 

I heard the rain like a mystery 
falling outside the window at night 
on the naked acacias; 
and then I deeply longed for a house buried away 
beyond the outskirts of the most forgotten land 
to give me shelter 
* 

`I loved you, I loved you, you were everything to me, yet 
you loved only yourself' 
she told me so callously as if a beast had me between its teeth, 
I writhed like a roe, yet she continued to cry at me 
`I'm human, you're depraved' in a voice harrowingly vulgar 
*  

(the black pearl) 

sombre waters glowed and I muttered 
like the magician quickening the spell 
while the fair Blanche in darkness' circle 
pacing ceaselessly 
kept talking and saying
'white means despair, black pride'
at time fixing me with a scowl
*

yet what sardonic colours, what erratic tendencies, 
weary we lie down, sleep evades us 
or a prudent woman dissuades us 
from falling lower than even effrontery 
when with a faun's eyes the young tumbler dances 
balancing 
on the elusive threads that unite things sublimer 
and we seek heroes ... and it's always nightfall
*

how the veils hiding the secret tresses rippled 
when I saw the Hero, 
the living muscles and in his flaming eyes the spark of life, 
that which knows how and is able to seize happiness; 
there before me was strength and health 
was the stone's will and the earth's touch 
was the sun that rent the moonlight like mist 
was reason itself and all together at once the virtues 
of battle
*

Absence itself came 
beneath the trees in the rain 

saying to me 'come' 
I said 'go away' 

and everything happened once more from the beginning 
again and again
*

(Faust)

'what a blood-red chandelier this sun as it sets' 
'won't it be an ideal night for the coming of the lord of darkness?' 
'holding a cup of poison...' 
'wine...' 
'ink...'
'and again tonight like before' 
'we'll discuss the arts' 
'there must be candles glowing' 
'ah how wonderful I hurry to be back by nine'
'no, no need at all to hasten, we'll dally till two' 
'farewell then'
*

on a table all around, candles and carved cups of ruby, 
simplistic songs speak in cryptic words 
in that half-light 
that the sullen passer-by always leaves in his wake 
when the yellow lamps pass beneath the clouds 
and it's the third hour
*

amorous hours are hovels 
wildly round about roam tender souls 
faltering they penetrate hostile territory 
vainly seeking ballast 
— on condemnation's ultimate mound — 
till a timely blow shatters them 
two eyes of ice and an iron hand
*

sifting slivers bursts — in immediacy 
where lives are sometimes compared to rivers 
and sometimes to eyelids never to open 
except to light more substantial 
more transubstantiated
*

something reversed prevents the flows from proceeding
to the intrepid breath
the lamp burned wanly, and a woman's body
the colour of ash emerged from the door
groping spaces
and extending bony arms at the scene's centre
was crucified symbolically on the stone screen
High Priestess of the Void
*

(MATER DEI)

she stared at me full stature from the distance
and I'd fallen onto the slabs
and was pounding my hands
and crying out
*

everything turns to psychology — words, trees, rotations;
I seek a hatch to entomb them
living later,
in an age of deviation from the dramatic,
when men will recognize decay
and works will not exist
*

one with simplicity two lips will half-open tonight
at this turn of the moon that the she-wolf holds
in her teeth and brandishes
while the night with leaden grass will fill the streets
and infinity's vultures will swoop from on high to savour
the body's discarded by vagabonds
on dematerialization's barren earth
*

in this haunt for failures
around the table at supper-time
gather old and unknown poets,
and a fair-haired cherub
— once the cover on my cheap childhood copy-books —
standing in the corner blesses them
*

(the shepherd's star)

Christ averts his face
and flesh becomes steel
water lead
clouds gravel
and bread once touched by the point
scatters like soil, and all the futile
curtains in life are torn asunder
collapse
and alone above the ridge
at the turn of the hour
a perilous light
maliciously flickers
*

I was nearly gazing at skyscrapers, crossing
the accursed soil all morning
the very ghost of Don Juan who comes ever closer,
while time had suddenly declined,
as it spoke in contradictions and kept asking for hidden
and transcendent lights, and so the days passed
though I was unable ever to arrive
till the time came for my self to appear as another
*
(developing acquaintance)

something sharp and certain behind a curtain;
a voice saying politely, like fate, bidding farewell,
'au revoir'
instead of a simple 'see you'
*
(Egypt)

after the vision that I beheld unfolding
on the dark couch,
love slumbering naked
and up above a nocturnal emission crawling
to the top of the back rest
— a male sphinx of alabaster —
I proceeded and found in Cleopatra's 
innermost chambers
a child, a deer, undressing alone
that but for a little I'd have squeezed in my arms
before the white wildcat had time to even shout
'bravo, bravo, tonight too you were marvellous'
*

someone unknown shouted in the depths of a mirror
and the trains rent the heavens
till the gaze turned with passion
and a narcotic melancholy
slowly bathed the idols
and the frost fell
*

the other day I saw Beauty
indifferently entering
a wagon;

in the street people passed by
unsmiling unfathomed and perhaps fatal
*

that man is a house of cards that one day will collapse;
though first for some time he'll resemble
a primeval monument like that of Babel

when it falls, will anyone be found I wonder to reassemble
the pack
to cast the cards, to see
whether in fact his soul existed
* 

and song comes with a trough of tears
tears that spring from heart's stone
or well suddenly — a wave of joy and sorrow —
when we reflect on life
and see the marvels around us existing
without our even wanting without our even sensing
then words rise from our breath
*

walking in apathy amid the glaring lights
as the flayed souls passed before his eyes
he murmured 'O Gods, this endless heaven,
and your angels walking on the rigorous path' * 


* This phrase is in English in the original [Translator's note]

Translated by David Connolly

Page(s) 162-169

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