With poetry against war

Poetry Readings

Kastelli, Crete

April 20 – 23, 2006

I. Reading at Cultural Centre

Mayor receiving all at Cultural Centre

Mayor and Takuya Kaneda

Co-ordinated by

Socrates Kabouropoulos

Poets

Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke

Dostena Laverge

Hatto Fischer

Socrates Kabouropoulos

“Poems of Paula Meehan”

(transl. into Greek by Socrates Kabouropoulos) Από τη συλλογή (Pillow Talk, 1994)

Η ΠΡΟΣΛΗΨΗ ΤΟΥ ΠΑΤΕΡΑ ΜΟΥ ΣΑΝ ΟΡΑΜΑ ΤΟΥ ΑΓ. ΦΡΑΓΚΙΣΚΟΥ

στον Brendan Kennelly

Ήταν το δίχρωμο άλογο στον διπλανό κήπο
που μ’ έβγαλε από τ’ όνειρο
με το πρωινό του χλιμίντρισμα. Ξαναγύρισα
στην αποθήκη του σπιτιού,
δωμάτιο τώρα του αδελφού μου,
όλο γραβάτες, πουλόβερ και μυστικά.
Τα μπουκάλια ακούστηκαν στο κατώφλι της πόρτας,
το πρώτο λεωφορείο σύρθηκε ως τη στάση.
Το υπόλοιπο σπίτι κοιμόταν

εκτός απ’ τον πατέρα μου. Τον άκουσα
να σκουπίζει τη στάχτη από τη σχάρα,
να βάζει την τσαγιέρα στην πρίζα, να σιγομουρμουρίζει έναν σκοπό.
Έπειτα ξεκλείδωσε την πίσω πόρτα
και βγήκε στον κήπο.

Το φθινόπωρο είχε σχεδόν τελειώσει, η πρώτη πάχνη
άσπριζε τις πλάκες του κτήματος.
Ήταν μεγαλύτερος από ότι είχα υπολογίσει,
τα μαλλιά του ολότελα ασημένια,
και είδα για πρώτη φορά το κύρτωμα
στον ώμο του, είδα ότι
το πόδι του ήταν ξερό. Πού πήγαινε;
Τόσο πρωί, με τ’αστέρια ακόμα στη δύση;

Έπειτα ήρθαν: πουλιά
κάθε μεγέθους, σχήματος, χρώματος∙ ήρθαν
απ’ τους φράχτες και τους θάμνους,
από το γείσο της στέγης και από τις καλύβες του κήπου,
από τα βιομηχανικά κτήματα, τα μακρινά λιβάδια,
ήρθαν από το Ντάμπερ Κρος
και από τα χαντάκια του Βόρειου Δρόμου.

Ο κήπος ήταν ένα πανδαιμόνιο
όταν ο πατέρας μου σήκωσε ψηλά τα χέρια του
και τίναξε τα ψίχουλα στον αέρα. Ο ήλιος

καθάρισε την καμινάδα του Ο’ Ράιλι
κι εκείνος ξαφνικά ακτινοβολούσε,
ένα τέλειο όραμα του Αγ. Φραγκίσκου,
ολόκληρος, νέος ξανά,
σ’ έναν κήπο στο Φίνγκλας.

My Father perceived as a vision of St Francis

For Brendan Kennelly

It was the piebald horse in next door's garden

frightened me out of a dream

with her dawn whinny. I was back

in the boxroom of the house,

my brother's room now,

full of ties and sweaters and secrets.

Bottles chinked on the doorstep,

the first bus pulled up to the stop.

The rest of the house slept

except for my father. I heard

him rake the ash from the grate,

plug in the kettle, hum a snatch of a tune.

Then the unlocked the back door

and stepped out into the garden.

An autumn was nearly done, the first frost

whitened the slates of the estate.

He was older than I had reckoned,

his hair completely silver,

and for the first time I saw the stoop

of his shoulder, saw that

his leg was stiff. What's he at?

So early and still stars in the west?

They came then: birds

of every size, shape, colour: they came

from the hedges and shrubs,

from eaves and garden sheds,

from the industrial estate, outlying fields,

from Dubber Cross they came

and the ditches of the North Road.

Paula Meehan

II. Reading underneath the tree - April 23, 2006

Poems sail with the wind

afterwards people

say a few words

Katerina Anghelaki Rooke

WAR DIARY

13th Day or Now on land!

The heavenly battles descend on the soil
and death returns to earth:
its place of origin.
High flashes accompany it;
it is the only luxury left to the corpses.
Indeed, how did evil change direction!
From below, its immediate action would start:
from mud, hoofs of animals
boots, swamps and it would rise
up to the black clouds and the innocent souls.
Now the desert,
as I imagine it with countless pink shades
sand breasts
breathing in the desert wind
a secret body
with its dark oases hidden under
impartial spectator of disaster
conquered by parachutes.
From above downwards now
the evolution of bleeding flesh;
heaven a past in flames
will be forgotten
and the good will be thrust in the earth
buried deep, very deep in memory.

14th Day or the abolition of inner space

I am a speck of sand
taken in by black waters.
The place is flooded and the boundaries
separating the two spaces lost:
the inner one where memories grow
together with weed-fears, grass-hopes
and the outside one choking in the dirty scourge
of the latest news.
When was the boundary destroyed?
Lava, sewers, waste
pour into my inside self unimpeded
- my inner life has been abolished.
I am thinking of getting hold of a little branch of tenderness
to remember your birthday
years ago in a snow-covered landscape.
But your body weighs on me
like all those dead ones
and those eyes of yours
–their color that of a shuddering reptile–
were narrated to me
by inconsolable mothers
painted for me by crying girls
and wounded boys.
How was I so plundered
without ever stepping out of my room
and the private garden
of my sorrow when I saw you leaving
became a collective tomb?
How is it that I,
who was so involved with the skirmishes
between the visible and the invisible
ended up a fanatic viewer
of the most recent broadcasted horror?

15th Day or the lesson

For Pedro Mateo

We said we would have our lesson again today
As if nothing…as if nothing…
All of us humans without “power”
“popular mandate”
Or some “sacred duty” calling us.
Language we said
Language the eternal joker!
What does “mascara” mean?
The additional face! Funny, eh?
Words, tiny surprises
With their simple meaning,
Their complex function….
Abruptly we stopped laughing;
We thought that even language
Sounds insane these days…
Night fell, we switched the light on
And saw how dark our glance was.
Reality gives us the most thorough teachings
And this knowledge is first a heavy could
That crushes you
Before becoming a light sheet
That covers you.

16th Day or the End of the person

I was going towards sleep
With my head full
Of smoke from the burned earth,
And my heart squeezed
By invisible pincers.
And while every night
I imagine the end of my person
As others pray
I found tonight on my pillow
A gift given to me by war:
The insignificance of my death.

17th Day or One more Elegy

All quiet on the front today
The only thing they didn’t tell us was how many
Scorched ones they pushed into the sand.
I wondered if the desert
Rejects alien bodies
As our poor body does…
Night is falling; I am reading letters
From between the Wars: they correspond
And kiss through words
Without knowing if they will ever meet
Tsvetaeva, Pasternak, Rilke.

18th Day or The new order of things

I dreamed
That I was in the old love nest
But everything was changed:
Walls had collapsed
New rooms had appeared
Whiter than lilies
With nurses all in white
Inviting me in.
“You know, I used to come here years ago…”
I said as if I were apologizing
While with my eyes I licked the corner
Where the mattress used to be.
It looked now like something rubbed out
In a child’s copy book
Or like the snout of a wild-boar
Sunk in the green mould
Covering an ancient stone.
A sweetish smell sprang from the spot
Which did not remind
The old supine one
Of anything anymore
“The new order of things”
I whispered waking up.

Anna Arvanitaki, President of Women's Association

and Jan Brüggemeier listening to Katerina

19th Day of what we know about sleep

“We do not know where
The knowledge of sleep rests”
Said the professor on Television
between two assaults in the Gulf –
and added that the more minute
the animal is, the less it sleeps.
Look at the bird
That hangs from a high branch;
It knows
That if it falls asleep
Intoxicated by the divine blue
It’ll lean downwards
The branch will break
And who knows in what abysmal
Dead man’s arms it’ll fall
If it deeply sleeps
If it deeply dreams of heaven.

20th Day or The little phrase

The sun is like a mirror today
With brown spots appearing on the surface
And the reflection of an uncertain shape
Standing instead of an image.
The life-giving content of vegetation
The expressions of passion
And the beautiful decorations of decay
Everything is tedious this hour
That motionless resembles an animal
When it sniffs its last moment
Even if it doesn’t know
How the divine can smell!
And suddenly in this soup of existence
A little phrase comes up to the surface
From deep down, from the bog of dreams.
Unexpected, forgotten, playful, childish
With its sounds unmolested by time
A little phrase, a gold-fly
Flew in from the open window:
“Coming, ready or not!”

Days Later or The moral is always in prose

I re-read the War poems. I observe how the despair of the others
became my own myth. My inner life has just come back and its
suitcases are full of impressions. But why was I in such a hurry to
write down my reactions to all these frightful but so remote events
of the time?
It is because my hidden person has topped telling stories to my
visible one. Like bodiless heads all my stories float in a colourless
substance that is not even memory.
Who went where and fate was spoiled? Who unbuttoned his shirt?
Who locked the door? How is it possible that I cannot narrate all
The visits of death?
I got involved in foreign wars because in my heart the traces of my last passionate campaign have disappeared.

Dostena Laverge

Dostena Laverge

Supper with poppie

One day lies will sparkle
like crushed puppies
and they won’t be lies
just crushed poppies sparkling.

Drink their pink colour and think of me
with a red necklace on Easter Day I’ll come
and I won’t be pale
with all these wounds open, with all these colours flowering on the skin
and a wave under the armpit
carrying you in its hollow
love slips in
aroused the tender down close to the body
at sunset when the predatory glance of the trees dies
the axes painted in red die
between the fingers a sun shines

a drop

you are going to recognize me because that evening
we shall all dine together
each one fixing the wound
a sunset wave-breaker
waves high as they fall in dreams
then you will loosen your fists that I may drink
this very instant
before the deluge
pray that this instant lasts
as long as the moon lasts
so that we may know the simple entries the way
from your house to my house
so that your words are the thread
that your story flows the constellation foams
like your poetry that night
that I may be with you
like the fire with the tree
just as much as a first kiss
impossible to hold
all those dining around the table will cry as well
and their eyes will overflow from the high waves
and then I’ll say to you
“Look at the skyblue, look at the sparkling white
that spring out of the sea today”.

(translation from French by Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke)

The resurrection of colours

(from hope to the paintings of Anastasi)

Doubt-still down there in the gallery’s basement
Frozen with shame, his eyes devoured dusk until it went grey
It holds a tiny bone – painted like a candle
Hope, it said, is a mole
It doesn’t know if it digs upwards or downwards

The face of a saint, people thought and went to pray
In one of the cells next to Claustrophobia

Then someone screamed in the laboratory –
A herd of elk in a prehistoric cave
Cry of a newborn, trumpet of an inflamed angel
A blue bee explodes at the top of a kiss and opens up
A wound in the abyss –
The red face of Jesus
(Triumphant and suffering)
The face doesn’t play around with forms
Shameless sanctity of the world after the resurrection
A vision beyond the dice roll dialectics.
Down there colours don’t heal –
The greens of an immortal April
Don’t forget and don’t remember,
They mate: a musician, a deer, a chariot, suns, ovules, toads, in the shell
Of desire, fish carrying the genetic code of man,
Throne of hope in the valley of high winds,
Star tempests in the lemon fields,
Rams crowned with orange colours gallop
Crossing the electric gardens of chaos…without
Armour, without skin
Bodies, faces, desires, hair: a star fusion

Hope is there where you are mostly in danger, at the frontier of becoming,
Patience and audacity to grasp by liberating
The form which is being born a point that never ceases to flourish…

Somewhere, at the foot of the tops, even further down than the inconsolable blue
Repetition plays with an unknown touch, an all new memory.

The time remaining

Switch off the T.V., the radio, the computer, the newspapers
The fir, the series crime, the epidemic
The war and the rhetoric
The washing machine, the bedside light
Listen
To the bodies clocks: six billion time bombs
Are the only ones to savour the time remaining.

Hatto Fischer

Hatto Fischer

Iraq

No one can be complacent anymore in Baghdad
Not when American soldiers search in houses
For insurgents and force instead women and children
To stand against the wall till fear is written in their faces.
What show of power is that? A scene on CNN depicted it.
The soldiers claim: these women are not telling the truth,
But only when the soldiers seized the mother of all mothers
As if being arrested, then the others cried out to speak:
‘Stop! We will tell you what we know!’

As a follow-up to the road map to Baghdad,
Foreign powers make sure different rules than under Hussein apply.
Now power is direct as indirect, secretive, elusive and deadly.
The general outcome is violence stalking everywhere.
Baghdad is after March 21, 2003 without its historic meaning.
The work of soldiers is based on the order to shoot to kill,
And now they want the women as potential informers to talk.
They want them to provide information, some guidance
About the whereabouts of insurgents as they are called.
And yet betrayal known in history as the story of Judas
Leaves many true dreams broken, meanings destroyed,
By those who do not want peace but permanent war.

What can be observed in these times?

She said her soul is broken, love gone.
In silence she will dwell, return the wind of dust
What exists outside the city is the desert
With a horizon elongating the agony
When children paint to see future stars.
In search of convictions that life continues
they try to see if not al is in vain, but what to do
Since war has overturned many centuries in Babylon.

Sober thoughts bring truthful moments like the hand
Given by the mother to the child which quivers
When soldiers burst again into the houses of Baghdad
Out of fear for their own lives in a strange land
They have occupied without knowing the reason why.

As to the protection of the hand giving shade
When the sun stands high, there will come the time
That all these occupations cease and recede like water
Drying out till far away the cry is heard to stop the war.

Athens 23.12.2003

London – after July 7th 2005

Soft under
the curvature of a stone
reminds of the sea
but way down under in London
on that terrible day
Tears shall never go away.
Surely you give yourself a shove
to last through the day with defiance
while recalling how we used to rollick
over the hills of Hampstead Heath
in all innocence to search
when flying kites for future outlets
or we went to the grave of Marx
to see the world not as East/West
but since that Cold War has ended,
we feel no longer to be on waves
allowing our thoughts to surf
for waves of destruction hit streets
to leave pedestrians struck
as if London no longer connects
to memory lanes of Lennon
singing to image the people;
Instead sirens cut through the air,
gone silent are faces now pale
after news of bombs hitting the London Tube.

London 12.7.2005

Poem about love in a world divided

I would not know this evening
Where to put my love poem,
If not underneath the pillow.
For when I sleep and dream,
I find myself at the threshold
Of an imagined consciousness.
All is there in vivid colors, alive.
It lets me walk like philosophers do
Along historic routes in-between city walls.
It is a path poets used to take,
But now beggars sweep it with bare hands.
These hidden streets give them a daily loan.
To their surprise they still find metal chunks
Caravans have left behind many ages ago.
But now the air is filled with a scent
As if rose petals float down from roofs.
Sunlight gives dust a chance to dance.
Not knowning the Western world until now,
While overwhelmed by all these challenges
From the Islamic side articulating new sounds,
Many can no longer understand the call of love!
When compared to someone as close as far away
Not in distant lands but down by the river to wash
The feet of those they have carried out of the city,
A new reckoning is needed in order to understand
Those finally freed from a city stranded in anxiety.
There is hope no one needs to fear sickness at night
Or to hear laughter, as if death stalks ever closer in.
For love resonates within city walls, along that path,
And cools the forehead of the body shaken by temperatures
Soaring up dangerously high to near forty degrees
To elongate the wild fantasies created as if a dream
When men view women veiled
As if only eyes talk in darkness
About to descend to put to rest
Those wild dreams about love.

Athens 15.4.2006

Fatema Nawaz (black jacket) and Takuya Kaneda

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