1577 - The luminous nostalgia
N. Lygeros
Translated from the Greek by Athina Kehagias
1- Myrsine
2- The kiss of eternity
3- The sorrow of expatriation
4- Vergina
5- Compassion
6- The City’s coin
7- The eagle of the tower
8- My light
9- The weight of light
10- The eternal moments
11- The waterfront of necessity
12- At the borders of emotion
13- At the iron bars of heaven
14- The storm of memory
15- The sign and the caress
16- Nightfall upon the waves
17- The pyre of destiny
18- Heads or tails
19- The dance of nostos
20- The road and the tree
21- The invisible petals
22- Fire!
23- The first woman
24- The sun’s dust
25- Temptation
26- The drinking fountain’s pages
27- The canyon of memory
28- Sensitivity
29- The marbles of the sunset
30- The stony kiss
31- The stigma of Odysseus
32- Here and now
33- Consciousness of light
34- Here is everywhere over there
35- Ιntense viciousness
36- I comprehend and I conceive
37- Liberty square
38- Fire of the myth
39- Nostalgia for the future
40- The metamorphosis of freedom
Myrsine
At the year’s noon
you kissed my eyes
and you tore me to pieces
in the summer’s night.
Simple and always bravely
you didn’t cry for time
but you stole the pain,
pure and always steadily.
A fragrance through the hair
wrapped up around my hand,
the star caressed me
and lit up a sweet flame.
a wound that remains open
doesn’t put the night on trial
And finally the daybreak
hides the dawn of a life.
The kiss of eternity
I felt the eon’s bitterness,
stones which embed the world,
I touched the lips of winter,
red marks upon paper.
The passion slashes
our chest and heart
and lust frightens us
as it comes near us.
I bent down and kissed the ground,
memory of the immortal wound,
I grabbed and smelled the body,
fragrance of the blue spring.
The sorrow of expatriation
Yesterday as I was walking through our old paths
where I felt enormous loneliness,
I met up with our own bitterness:
fate looking abroad.
In the world’s port
the sorrow begins,
in fate’s walkabout
the purpose sees an end.
Sea, my homeland and my land
I want to drink you up sip by sip
and when at last my soul is drunk
do take me with you in the deep.
Vergina
In the East I touched upon
the borders of the world,
then for a moment I held
my dream and my glow.
A passion in my life
I had envisioned
and now my soul wants
to come to find you.
A a stark sun in the sky
became my wound,
the Macedonian star
was searching for my drive.
A passion in my life
I had envisioned
and now my soul wants
to come to find you.
Compassion
I glance at the ocean,
the expatriation hills
and I feel the gloominess
of our destiny.
I want the ocean,
the forgetfulness caress,
which drinks down the darkness
of our destiny.
I hide the ocean,
within my eyes tears
and I stand at the edge
of our destiny
The City’s coin
Oh stranger, if only I knew what you wanted
for your silver coin,
its labyrinthal lines
are reaping through my skin
I dare not look at it
I recognize its race,
to read it I can not
but I know its scripture.
My wounded body
for freedom awaits
and my broken sword
a rebel remains.
The wound of memory
is sorrowfully ridged,
it brings me to Hagia Sophia
to see a Constantinato.
The eagle of the tower
Devious was the army
bloody the militiamen,
the thunderbolt sounded
the stars disappeared.
As he saw the red swords
he went to the white tower
and hid within it deep
the secret of his lands
But with the first cannon fire
they broke his flagpole
and freedom with a sword
fought like a lion.
A shot got him in the heart
and the Romios fell down,
before the valiance was wiped off
an eagle then appeared.
My light
In my house loneliness
staring at the walls
wrote amidst the frostiness
expatriate lyrics.
The past and silences
broke down my voice,
the moments of nostalgia
grabbed hold of my body.
The beauty in my land
wounding the stones
created within the wilderness
statues and myths.
And I who lives with a wound,
with a fire in my hands
I am in the rain
and for new summers I search.
The weight of light
Within my mind
the red winters erupted
and my shackles were broken down
just like rocky eons.
Only the weight of light
bends my body,
only the passion and sorrow
wound my drive.
And if I at some time I’ve lost
the coin of existence,
I had never forgotten
the sea’s skin.
The eternal moments
The dream was wounded
with the weeping dawn
and life arose
with the burning wound.
It has the taste of light
that rocky soil of ours
and our powerfull colour
the sky has given us.
As soon as we’ve learned the steps,
of memory the signs
we danced upon the waves,
at the sunset’s caresses.
The waterfront of necessity
I have a seashore as my homeland
and I am nostalgic of the verses
which I read one crack of dawn
upon the white walls.
It’s you who is thirsty of fires
which break down the shackles,
It’s you who asks for the instances
which open up the sails.
I broke down my patience,
seasides of passion
and I burned down the postponements,
erroneous wounds.
It’s you who is thirsty of fires
which break down the shackles,
It’s you who asks for the instances
which open up the sails.
And at the borders of purposes
I’m searching for a substance
which is sailing within the past,
as though an absent presence.
At the borders of emotion
The dark glances
fill the eons
with black and white images
from everywhere and nowhere.
There even the rain
is a hidden sign,
a forgotten brake of dawn
within the deep darkness.
The bright borders
reminiscent of battles
which wounded winters
and Balkan violins.
There even the soul
a torn apart history
it does not sing, lays siege to
an old photo.
At the iron bars of heaven
The rain became iron bars
and a song that’s bitter
and heaven an imprisonment
for old Schinoudi.
The stones broke up the village:
source of freedom
the piasters stole the cross:
beginning of the siege.
The chapels are awaiting
for the colour of hope,
the summers sing waveringly
the anthem of the homeland.
The fighters of destiny
are dancing with the pain
whereas new dancers
are struggling with time.
The storm of memory
The port of hope
it is a mental anguish
and a handful of homeland
a mere sigh.
Blue handles of pain break down white silences,
memories which burn us in the most serene moments.
With a storm within his eyes
and a flame in the mind
we grabbed hold of the two pieces:
the need, the destiny
The sign and the caress
The sun with gentleness
kissed your ground,
our warm tenderness
scarred body.
In the pain’s seaside
a wave broke
and the stones wept bitterly
for our blue victim.
Just like a caress it filled
the sandy coast with sounds
and bedewed our wound
with turbulent lyrics
Nightfall upon the waves
The nightfall is an instance
which remains secretive
in the night’s leisurely stroll.
On the verge of temptation
the blaze of heaven
illuminates the port.
And the sea from deep inside
with its brackish drops
brings us the wet fire,
the luminous battles.
Your lips are thirsty
and I’m in silence,
your hands are daring
and I’m in anticipation.
The pyre of destiny
White colour, black dungeon
and the soul burns at every step
for the aching earth
There’s a need for nothing more.
Here rain is the light
fire which brings a daze
mourtzinos is the purpose
and the sorrow enormous.
Only with the courageousness
and poison drinking
they are all fighting in xenia
for the red caress
Heads or tails
With a dime in my pocket
I would leave every morning
to see the unglorified epics
which fill the life.
So I play heads or tails
when I am under the rain
and even when I win the coin
it’s the instance that is fake.
With the light upon the shoulders
and the forehead right up high
all alone in the streets
I was walking through old times.
With the waves in the eyes
every night I grasp
the pieces of day
which wound the heart.
The dance of nostos
The memory’s castle was taken
a myth was erased
a stolen star fell
silenced was the crowd.
Now that the accordion
and the lamentable images
are singing the past to us
even the eons are torn apart.
I threw away the worry beads
I dazed off my glance
I begun a mournful dirge
and I poured out my spirit.
The road and the tree
In this village build of stones
the forgotten terror
and the dead road
hide a bitter sadness.
In this lonesome instance
silence remembers
the battle that’s asleep
the iron and the fist.
It remembers our poor land,
her indescribable body,
her red soil
which ached one daybreak.
The lime tree did not fall,
those four hundred years
and heavy snow
did not hurt the beauty after all.
The invisible petals
Among the small buds
there is a sky blue,
stony ocean,
which breaks all the shackles.
And the bitter bouzouki sound,
the waves of sadness,
the petals of remorse
strike upon the heartless note.
The smell of colour
a song of sea
and an invisible flower
dripping with beauty.
Fire!
In the labyrinth of the world
I was walking in the morning,
I was searching all around for my light
but I could not find a soul.
I want to drink down the sky,
and the light, to intoxicate me
I want to see the destiny,
another life to begin.
And at night if I can
the broken wings
I will secretly steal from them
and I will light a fire.
The first woman
The eyebrows are an offer
and the crown an enigma,
the breasts a fire
and the glance a crime.
You didn’t forget and you are nostalgic of
the blue leisurely strolls,
You didn’t forget and you are searching for
the luminous ports.
You have thunderbolts in your hands,
and incandescent swords
heavens you have in your eyes
unremembered palaces.
The sun’s dust
The sun’s dust strikes upon
your red soil
and the stony air desires
your unadulterated body.
And from the mountains
the green waves are galloping
lowering humanism with pain
toward the sea.
Every instance, every breath
and an immortal icon
secretly desiring
a motionless eon.
Temptation
With your lips one day
you broke down the colour,
with the hands of the wind
you touched upon the body .
Your kiss on your body
doesn’t leaves a trace
and the castle in the sand
only lust indicates.
With your glance at night
you alter the heavens
and upon the skin with the caresses
temptations you engrave.
The drinking fountain’s pages
The Thermopylae of time
Venetian lions
open up in the mind of pain
the palaces’s gates.
Immortal water they poured
in the mouth sip by sip
and I see battles
the Byzantine castles give.
One by one the pages
I cut down with a knife strike
and hopes flourish
with the first fountain pen sign.
The canyon of memory
In the homeland’s canyon
beauty has fallen,
it was a red necessity
and a bitter knife wound.
She had had eagles in her hands
and Byzantine swords,
she awaited for pigeons,
and Venetian feathers.
The swallows of sunrise
softly they sang
and she remembered the nightingales
and the sorrowful expatriation.
Sensitivity
The hardships, the past
and the papers I’ll burn
and upon your body my desire
I will write with fire.
How should I fly, how should I fly
over your luminous sea,
to settle upon heaven?
You have the colour of the sea
my little noonday
and you are the light of temptation
a red summer.
The marbles of the sunset
White birds that once flew
over our old blue sky,
now they are awaiting motionless
upon the hovering Acropolis
the glance of summer
to shine again as it did then
and like stony foams
which became wings of eons
waving in the wind,
the marbles of the sunset.
The stony kiss
I’ve got the taste of stone on my lips
and I look upon our white goddess
with folded arms
motionless and attractive
with her intertemporal beauty.
It’s then that I forget the eons that passed
and the people who grew old,
but I do not feel the joy of forgetfulness,
I just feel the light
that flows through me
this memory that becomes
my own body.
The stigma of Odysseus
War, shield, lightning
and thirst for blood,
sea, need, temptation
and glory of the glance.
Second journey of oblivion
the waves of sorrow,
bright white mast of fellowship
horizon of time.
Passage, the colour of the sky
generous immortality,
outburst, the caress of the bond
invisible presence.
Here and now
The support here
I found for the first time
in the trunk of the pine tree,
I touched the face
and I felt upon the forehead
resin and fire.
I hold in my hand
the tear of the pine cone
and the kiss of the fragrance,
and without shackles anymore
I raise up the summer,
the revolution here and now.
Consciousness of light
At the seashore I am trying
with my emotion
and with my passions to find
my first action.
And in the void of oblivion
I count my steps
and with the mind of humanism
my schemata I embroider.
In silence’s epoch
I was born a myrsini
and in a luminous homeland
I became Romiosyne.
Here is everywhere over there
The marbles of beauty demand justice
and battlefronts of sky, but also intelligence.
Here is everywhere over there and the pain without colour
and what I am looking for is a handful of soil.
My land was wounded by a bloodshed,
my memory was created by a bitter illumination.
Here is everywhere over there and the road without spearmint
And what I’m looking for is a handful of people.
Ιntense viciousness
The sandy beach a modest body
without a wound
and the pain swords
upon the soul made of straw.
And the rage of the waves
strikes like an iron
the light which flows
upon the pseudo instant.
However the stone does not withstand
the flying of an eagle
and the iron can never
outcompete the light .
I comprehend and I conceive
The thirst of the soils
the depth of the instant,
the bitterness of blood
the error of the fist.
The thickness of the colours
the wealth of life,
the passion of the bodies
the desire of the soul.
The memory of the skins
the stigma of the wound,
the thought of signals
the light of silence.
Liberty square
In our little square
at our old neighborhood
came freedom
as if it were a blaze.
The pieces of the homeland
are within the fire,
the signs of hope
I have within my heart.
Moist is the marble of the seashore,
hot is the ordeal of life,
the stone of mind is blue
and the flight of breath is white.
Fire of the myth
The wrath of Achilles
iron of light,
the severity of Prometheus
a new sky.
The sword of Odysseus
a flame of the glance,
the firebrand of Prometheus
a chant of fire.
The memory of the seashore justice
of the sea burning myrsine,
the taste of fire intelligence
of the myth demanded by Romiosyne.
Nostalgia for the future
Every expression of substance is a discovery of words
white sails tearing through the blue of memory
authentic moments which fill the house of the sea
important thoughts which strike upon the meaning of existence
ephemeral words which last an eternity.
Every tear of the future constitutes a driblet of the past.
The metamorphosis of freedom
Our land,
an act of pain,
red battle,
a wound’s caress,
a state of need,
justice of Achilles.
Our sea,
memory of compassion,
a blue journey,
a sign of life,
resistance of need,
the romiosyne of Odysseus.
Our sky,
knowledge of passion,
white light,
stigma of resilience,
revolution of necessity,
the intelligence of Prometheus.