How do they come together? How do we?
The soldiers make sure no one is watching
so they can smile.
May 9
A soldier’s bitter cigarette on the beach
the first star as if seen from another’s window
the bread in the pack. They forgot us.
Quiet little harbor tidied up in the evening
can’t fathom at all what our nights are like
just like the air that sleeps inside a bell.
Oh, fish, fish, fish
in the blind water.
May 10
The camp bed on our shoulder
the aluminum plate in our bag
our whole household under our arm
the whole world on our back. We march.
Sometimes we gripe over the bread
sometimes we hide behind cigarette smoke
sometimes we wait tightly together
sometimes we’re afraid apart.
We’ve marched a long way.
At this hour who would come by?
May 11
Narrow endless shed
like a road in an unknown town
you don’t speak the language of this door.
A sick man coughs at the far end
two others play backgammon
that one is making his bed
that one is watching the flies on the windows
behind the flies he looks at the sea
at a ship being tossed about.
So, to drown –
is that too a way to live?
May 11
After the rain the buildings and the stones
change color.
Two old men sit on the bench. They don’t talk.
So much shouting and so much silence remains.
The newspapers age in an hour.
Stressed, unstressed, stressed, unstressed
the monotony of change — stressed;
unstressed, stressed, strophe, antistrophe
and neither rage nor sorrow.
Evening lights out;
just as heavy for the one who struck
as for the one he struck.
The men sit on the stones
pare their nails.
The others died.
We forgot them.
May 14
Over here the day is long
then night falls all at once
sleep becomes difficult
you hear those who snore under the blankets
you hear their beards growing
you hear them scratching their balls cursing.
Later when the wind dies down
a paper sound remains in the night
and suddenly the wooden clack
of eyelids opening
to chase after dreams.
May 14
We’ve gotten used to the gulls
they bring no message
they open and close their wings
as if opening and closing the shutters
in an empty house.
We’ve gotten used to the sleepless nights
to sleep shattered like broken windowpanes
to the cripples with their crutches
the filth on the beach
the bread ration thrown into the sea
the potato peelings stuck on the rocks
like gutted intestines
the shadow of a cloud over Sounio across the way
the sound of the chain falling into the water at night
we’ve gotten used to people forgetting us.
And that statue without arms
was beautiful
you didn’t know where it was pointing
or if it was.
May 15
The guard sits behind the barbed wire
the lapels of his trench coat raised.
The other day I noticed his arms
they are thick and strong
he would have carried the flag in one of our parades.
Now he sits behind his rifle
as if behind a wall.
Behind the wall sits spring –
he can’t see it.
I see it and smile
and I’m sad
that he can’t see it.
He’s bound the shadow of his rifle around my eyes
as if it were a black handkerchief,
but I want him to see spring and smile.
May 16
A soldier leans against a telegraph pole
smoking his cigarette
maybe listening to the piano on the loudspeakers.
In the tents the exiles
are eating their evening meal.
The moon is big
like the big pot in the kitchen
that they wash in the sea.
And of course the trees can’t turn green
at random.
May 17
The hospital boat mirrored in the water
white with an apricot stripe way up high
is beautiful
in the bowl of morning quietness
like an old sorrow in a new poem.
May 18
They abandoned us with our wounds.
The soldiers come out on fatigue duty
barefoot heads shaven jackets torn
we see them over there chopping wood
perched on the mountain — as though they love us.
When night falls
they come down shortly before lights out
they piss into the sea in groups
watching the lights of Lavrio. They don’t talk.
They’re waiting for something. We’re waiting for something.
Outside all night the moon saws
long planks from great fallen trees.
For doors. Yes, for doors.
May 19
The mad and the crippled multiplied
precisely now
that the great suffering is over.
In the evenings we can hear
the madman’s cry from the roof
amplified over the sea.
The eyes widen
dark so dark
like two gypsy shacks on the edge of town.
Inside two half-naked gypsies
are beating iron.
This clanging
makes it hard to write a letter
and even harder to write a poem.
Here everything has been written in blood.
May 22
He arrived this afternoon the way
one arrives who’s been gone for years
with faded baggage
covered with foreign customs stamps.
He came for us.
He doesn’t recognize us.
We recognized him.
May 24
We wrote so many nice wills
they were never opened
no one read them
because we didn’t die.
We said things
that a person says only once
we gave things
that a person gives only once.
Big words
so simple
like the spoons in the knapsacks
of those killed.
We saw eternity
mirrored head to foot
in the glasses of the nearsighted man
they killed two months ago.
And just think how it would be
if you could no longer pronounce
“we”
without lowering your eyes
without blushing.
May 27