Three new Kostas Ouranis translations
by Steven Fowler
[ poetry - october 10 ]
Girl thirteen years old
Fast, lithe, and slippery, a snake, whenever
I reached my hands to catch her, she slipped away,
provoking yet escaping me forever,
laughing and teasing in her happiness.
But as we played and I pursued, whenever
our bodies grappled, touched and clung,
she laughed - but not as innocently as before,
and blood rushed to my forehead like a wave
Thus for a moment, as I seized her waist
and held her in my arms with burnt desire,
enslaving her slight thighs between my knees
I knew her fine surrender in my grasp
as her eyes glassed and her slim lips trembled:
I felt the woman within her awakening
The dark well
I am above myself, as though over a well
I stoop, and deep in its dark earth
cast my voice like a small stone
not a single echo sounds
Silence, and emptiness
nest below, as though the water's flow
in the vast darkness of the well
had dried up a long, long time ago
Fontaine de Medicis
I know a distant corner in an ancient park
where even lovers never dare to go,
for dismal waters lurk there choked with rotting leaves,
and sea green shadows lean low in their diluted veils.
There stands stone benches by the twisted ivy twined,
and naked statues by only white moss and lichen clothed
and a deathly quiet where only ceaselessly
murmurs the weeping of mysterious waters
There I have seen anonymous and pallid women
ageless, with lifeless eyes
spread on their knees their old, eternal knitting
and limpid youths who in their hands hold ancient books
yet those never knitted, and these never read
but lost in thought looked upon the black, stagnant waters
Special thanks to Krystalli Glyniadakis
