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Nikos Kavvadias

SELECTED POEMS

English translation by Simon Darragh
from 'Wireless Operator'.


FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
For a moment, you waved your bolero
and your orange petticoat, like banners.
Was it in August? I remember it so,
when they were all setting off, the cross-bearers.
In the wind the ranks of banners rippled –
toward death the galleys set their sails.
While children were cowering at the nipple
the old man was lazily sunning his balls.
Picasso’s bull let out a snort;
in the hives the honey all turned rotten.
The course is against us – it’s set for the north.
Full ahead – never mind that we’re forgotten.
The olives spread easy under the sun,
and little crosses grew in the gardens.
At night, only sterile embraces remained
when they brought you, my gypsy, wrapped in an apron.
My gypsy, my leader, what for your pall?
Bring the purple cloth of Mauretania.
In Kaisariani they took us behind the wall,
and the mass was raised to manly stature.
Distoman girls, bring water and vinegar:
cross-wise on the mare your body lain,
set out on the final journey to Cordoba,
across its thirsty open plain.
The marsh-boat reversed, narrow, no keel;
the weapons rust in a gypsy redoubt.
In the empty arena, let the crows wheel;
let the seven dogs howl in the village all night.

KURO SIWO
That first trip - a southern freight, by chance -
no sleep, malaria, difficult watches.
Strangely deceptive, the lights of the Indies -
they say you don't see them at a first glance.
Beyond Adam's bridge, you took on freight
in South China - soya, sacks by the thousand,
and couldn't get out of your mind for a second
what they'd told you in Athens one wasted night.
The tar gets under your nails, and burns;
the fish-oil stinks on your clothes for years,
and her words keep ringing still in your ears:
"Is it the ship or the compass that turns?"
You altered course when the weather turned,
but the sea bore a grudge and exacted its cost.
Tonight my two caged parrots were lost,
and the ape I'd had such trouble to train.
The ship! - it wipes out all our chances.
The Kuro Siwo crushed us under its heel,
but you're still watching, over the wheel,
how, point by point, the compass dances.

MAL DU DEPART
Always the perfect, unworthy lover
of the endless voyage and azure ocean,
I shall die one evening, like any other,
without having crossed the dim horizon.
For Madras, Singapore, Algeria, Sfax,
the proud ships will still be setting sail,
but I shall bend over a chart-covered desk
and look in the ledger, and make out a bill.
I'll give up talking about long journeys,
My friends will think I've forgotten at last;
my mother will be delighted: she'll say
"A young man's fancy, but now it's passed."
But one night my soul will rise up before me,
and ask, like some grim executioner, "Why?"
This unworthy trembling hand will take arms
and fearlessly strike where the blame must lie.
And I, who longed to be buried one day
in some deep sea of the distant Indies
shall come to a dull and common death;
shall go to a grave like the grav