Dimítris Kalokýris
From: Colours of the Wet Animal (1990)
The Moon of Tranquillity
the white rope-ladder
fully-equipped, expressionless in helmets,
with a steel star-spangled banner
unflapping in one hand,
engulfing with their every step
cosmogonies, supersubstantial affinities
divinations, visions
centuries of nostalgia and reverie.
They gather rocks, earth, minerals
evidence and proof of their mission
advancing in waves towards the dunes
the dry river beds
on a secret march to the dark full-moon
to the other side that placidly faces the universe:
Yet behold, the seas of Alasia
craters of the Antiphonist
the Buffavento castle
the Harami minarets — maybe rockets.
The Troulloi metal mines
strip a karpass of Charcoal
before their very eyes; the vast
the unseen jowl of the Moon, a phallus
fiery like a venomous island that frothing
plunges into celestial Asia's depths.
Where astounded, the innocent starwalkers
Neilus, Bragadino and Isaac
find themselves galloping waving
the flags of Lusignan
ironclad against the void's storms
and hermetically seal themselves in the sub-combustion module
that begins to gleam, grow moist,
contract its wings, suddenly
rename its stern Dionysus
begins to sprout vines on the lenses
blooming oleanders on the aerials
while the transmitters are co-ordinated
and emit the hilarious cries
of rock's sacred maenads full blast over the loud-speakers
that the Eleventh Apollo is returning
with mankind's three heralds
who ecstatic transmit on the teleprinters
in digital codes the message:
`20th July. Daybreak. We're safe flying
over the dark crescent moon.
The rest of the moon is a divided island.
Most likely
called
Cyprus.'
Translated by David Connolly
Page(s) 81-82
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