Here where even pain got tired
solitude is more certain.
And you can’t hide from your eyes.
A naked woman
kneeling in the middle of a room
with closed shutters
plucks a beautiful hawk
tries its feathers on her hat
in front of the mirror on the old wardrobe.
Slight slight movements
you watch them
so slight
that you know: come night
you’ll be very angry.
May 28
No one lives in these houses
or at least no one seems to.
But the owner is in there
unseen persistent despotic
for all his wounds.
This is why the holes
the dolphins opened in the water
were there to hide the proof
to hide the first word
with its many consequences
that we never uttered
and that never ends.
May 29
We considered
the absolution we would grant
to others and to ourselves.
Of course death
would suit us very well
against the background of a white wall.
We failed.
Even a dilapidated house
looks less old
with a flag.
Sometimes the opposite is the case.
How can you fashion — he said –
a true astronomy of the soul?
The blanket is heavy
on the naked body.
Beautiful forgotten statue –
they painted it red
it died too.
May 30
The soldiers on the low wall
unshaven
a sorrow yawns in their eyes
they listen to the loudspeakers to the sea
they don’t hear a thing
perhaps they would like to forget.
At sunset
they go slowly to the gully to do their business
as they button up their pants
the new moon catches their eye.
The world could have been beautiful.
May 31
Kaiti writes:
in your garden the roses have run riot
yellow and white daisies
tall as you are
we washed the windows and the chandelier
your room smells of soap
I caressed your clothes and your books.
Ah Kaiti
we here
at the edge of our handkerchief
tied tight as a knot our vow to the world.
June 1
In the morning
the horizon is
the whitewashed facade of an orphanage.
In the evening it hangs
from the cripple’s crutches
like an island sock full of holes.
At night those killed
gather together under the stones
with some notes in their cigarette packs
with some densely scribbled scraps of paper in their shoes
with some illicit stars in their eyes.
Above them the sky grows larger
grows larger and deeper
never tires.
Concentration camp
Makronisos, 1950