Kontopouli, Limnos, 1948–49
DIARY OF EXILE III
January 18, 1950
The dead are many
very many.
We don’t fit. We’re crammed in.
A gull
shook out its towel.
Nobody wiped his hands.
Nobody saw.
January 27
You said:
a ship
sketched in chalk
on the prison’s inner door.
Can you fool death?
You can’t fool it.
February 3
All through the night the dead
crunch pieces of ice from the moon.
We no longer know what to do
not to hear.
And the mice eat our bread.
Fear is greater than rage.
February 7
Shadows loaded with stones
the barbed wire
you forgot the proper pronunciation
of your name.
A black cat runs
with the moon tied to its tail.
Strange.
Such great silence
and nobody wakes.
February 15
Where does this barbed wire end?
Snails crawl across the clothes of the killed.
Yet we did not come into the world
only to die.
Since at dawn
it smells of lemon peel.
February 19
Frozen sun. It gives no warmth.
Ten days of storm.
The sick have no appetite.
Everyone is sick.
We throw a lot of bread into the sea.
At least the gulls eat it.
Talk stops quickly.
We’re left outside our voice.
We hear and don’t hear the waves.
Under every word
is a dead person.
February 21
These people have understood much
they talk little, talk not at all
they carry a number of keys in their pockets
but have no door to open.
Sunday evenings they sit
on the stone steps
they don’t look at the stars
they don’t hear the sea
they don’t have trouble sleeping.
If anything good is to come
it will come from them.
February 23
The moon white
drum-tight
like the belly of the drowned.
Manolis used to say:
everything’s going to be fine.
His heart said so.
Manolis
down in the deep water
with the blind seaweed.
February 24
The flashlight stalks two broken arms
and you didn’t know if the severed foot was yours.
That was when we came together under the high wall
each of us alone striding over
the severed foot that was ours.
March 3
The exiles’ bundles on the playing field.
The match you light makes a lot of noise.
The cigarette burns with a bright flame.
Be careful.
April 24
The leaf’s shadow is opposite the sun.
Take off your shoes. Rest a while. Otherwise remember.
The woodcutters’ hands smell of pine sap.
Little girls behind the baskets
arrange the purple and the red.
Your mistake is that you don’t want to die.
But maybe the dead feel hunger too.
April 25
This year the blackbirds are the tiles
on the roof of summer.
Fear gropes like the blind man’s hand
for the handle of the door.
You sit on the rock
You’re calm because you’re tired
you’re good because you were afraid
you forget easily because you don’t want to remember
you don’t forget.
May 1
The soldier crushed his cigarette into the ground.
How easily every single thing can be crushed.
Across the water, Lavrio.
Who is it who said: the women reapers
with the swallows’ scythes?
Cover your ears with your hands.
Shame. Shame.
May 3
The people sit in the sun
they take off their jackets
their boots become tight
the soldiers’ armpits sweat.
You rub a little thyme between your fingers.
This is how we slowly slowly age
above the second death.
May 4
Someone is smoking beside the guardhouse.
The evening star looks out above the mountain
as if it’s knocked on the wrong door.
The utility poles darken
they stretch full length
afraid they’ll bend.
May 5
They owe us a lot.
If we don’t get it back
we’ll owe that too.
The floorboards are moldy from the damp
the windows warped the panes broken
dirtied sheets loose boots
the bread has no odor
the people have grown very thin
like saints.
May 6
Someone spoke. The other didn’t answer.
The words under the eyes are old
like the worn shoes under the bed.
The light comes on in the hospital
the way a window shuts.
We won, you said?
Unarmed victory, uncertain, already forgotten.
On one side and on the other: barbed wire.
You look straight ahead. There is no other road.
We won, you said.
One ship leaves another comes
one man comes another leaves –
where does death finally end?
Ash covers the fire
the flag covers the murdered man.
He who won he who lost
under the flag or with no flag
dead.
You’ll never know whether he signed.
It’s getting dark.
Again we’re easily fooled
trading two drams of hope
for five counterfeit stars.
May 7
Black jet-black island
above the black stone the lights come on
rats crisscross the toilets
stand still listen to the loudspeakers
look us in the eye unhurried
then calmly leave.
Skinned rams hang
over our sleep.
May 8
Two sandals on the rock. A drenched rope.
The man fishing across the way.
The two sitting on the dry grass.
The wire sitting above us all.