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

Spring 1999

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Ioulíta Iliopoúlou

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From: Years of Happiness Marcos (1987)


DREAMS WITH THE MOON'S HIDE... sleep smells of violet further within wild oregano further within earth... from the window into another and other dream Santa Mavra dragging seaweed and shells the stone staircase my bed into the darkness and then all the cemetery slowly into the house below the candles bends the voice of the blaze so with hair on end I'm unable to jump up to reach but into another and other dream stone by stone I leap... eyes thin like vapour others ivory blue others with the least of leaves around plucked by the wind — mustn't tread not tread on anything purple sails the curtains bulge then out of the windows high up rising to the roofs and naked the dead again fence with death... who Marcos who is it coming down the stairs? Ah! I awake... from another dream I gather the seaweed the soot the sword the crosses in another and other other... bed with a round skylight opposite like a moon opening and deep within amid the covers my violet in bloom. 

SHINY THE THORNS of Friday when my breathless friend turns to sleep and covers all of you deeply in body and deep the green sleep together with the other mosses love everywhere so you say in the moon's puffed cheeks the milk may soar high a bird of night or a whisper from my clothes — the terebinths gave no account the terebinths just spotted centuries like old mirrors where I can no longer see you... Laughter brings rings to the water and all the fragrances in train other intricate women like candelabra have been shining for a year now and others turquoise in the plant pot with umbrellas again invisible stopping the rain I whisper and then more loudly I suckle the future's spindle trees Marcos from the highest sense standing on tiptoe that I might cut the white light with wings outstretched towards the eleventh miracle at which my friend rises slowly as if without weight so so lighter within Marcos that he goes Saturdays. 

ENDLESS STAIRS Marcos wet with half-moons and oblong gardens alongside full of fragrance. I turn off the light hang on high the old castle polish, the battlements and all the statues in voile and pink vapour with long night.. dress barefoot I take in my cupped hands the copse we never visited and slowly I share it out here the mallows cypresses there the camomile elsewhere you. producing few flowers and a damp smell of sky so I might call you call Marcos little god of the flower gardens I biting the star that failed to fall upon my mouth waters white waters and bitters of frankincense you laden with trees consent sail — come come Marcos — and golden grey you love in the well.

Translated by David Connolly

Page(s) 199-200

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