Back from my morning walk, I think To stop and have a chat with Athena, The filly who grazes now and then In the empty lot next to our house.
Tired of anything resembling pedestrian Human communication, I try my best Using gestures and words full of guile To win her deepest equine attention.
With a snort I think must be full of vexation, She throws back her head so as to throw me A glance that makes it perfectly clear She wants nothing to do with anything
That smacks of polite conversation.
NB: άλογος (adj.) = without (logical) speech—το άλογο (neut. noun), the Greek word for ‘horse’.
You poets in the know, you always say Waiting and looking is your thing, And presume your next poem promises Answers to questions you think No one’s up to asking but you, well If you think that’s true, try these two Simple ones—who do you think you are, And who asked you for your view?
Cawing their raucous version Of Come and get it! The early risers are up On the utility lines opposite The pigeons cowering In their cubbyholes, keeping A keen eye out for any unfledged Chicks itching for a fling, surely these Lovey-dovey gentlemen callers are Crooning in the sweet by-and-by, There’s always one rash enough to try.
Christ, it took my breath away— I saw myself running straight Down the street in my birthday suit— Before I could say you’re making a mistake, Straightaway they bore me off, babbling Just you wait and see, I’ll be back Dressed to kill another day.
Hearing the frantic goatherd’s cry and before We ran to help him raise her and she gamboled off To dry in idyllic sun-drenched meadow, I tell you Down there she’d been a drowning panicky Blatting bobbing waterlogged pandemonium, Dog-paddling round stony ring of death accompanied By wide-eyed chorus of cacophonous frogs stoically croaking.
Βρε μάγκες δυο στη φυλακή
τα 'βαλαν με tον
διαυθυντή,
Τον αέρα να του πάρουν
Κι οτι θέλουν για να κάνουν.
Βάρα, μάγκα, το μπουζούκι
κι ασε το μαστουρουλούκι,
Θέλω η πενιά να κλαίει
και τα ντέρτια μου να λέει.
Κι απ' τα σίδερα σαν βγω,
μάγκα, Θα σου ξηγηθώ
Θε να ψήσω τη μικρούλα
να σ' τα κουβαλάει ούλα.
Θα σου στείλω και μαυρακι
μέσ' απ' το Καραϊσκάκη.
Πρόσεξε μη την τσιμπήσουν
και στη Σήμανση την κλείσουν.
Θα σου στείλω στ' όνομά σου
τέλια για τον μπαγλαμά σου.
Μη μιλάς και κάνε μόκο,
Θα σου ξηγηΘώ μπαγιόκο.
(Vazambam’sunchainedtranslation)
Two manges in prison
Had a run-in with the warden,
To call his bluff and do
Whatever they wanted to.
Strum the bouzouki, manga,
And lay off getting stoned,
I want the strumming to cry
And tell me of my woes.
And when I’m outta this joint,
Manga, I'll do right by you,
I'll get that little chick
To haul everything to you.
I’ll send you black hash, too
All the way from Karaϊskakis.
Watch out they don't pinch her
And throw her in the slammer. I'll
send you baglama* strings
Special
delivery just for you,
Play it cool, mum’s the word,
I'll stuff your craw with moola, too.
[Music and
lyrics by Kostas Tzovenos, first recorded in 1934 by Rita Abatzi, video clip recorded in Filia, Messinias, January 2013. Greek-speaking denizens of rembetika will most certainly notice the mangling of stanzas 3, 4 and 5 into one, a truncation brought on by the debilitating effects on the brain of that virulent virus known as Bacchus debauchus.]
NB:
“Mangas” is one of those Greek words that defy translation. Gail Holst in her ground-breaking English
introduction to rembetika music, Road to
Rembetika (Denise Harvey & Company, Limni-Athens, 1975), takes this now
somewhat outdated stab as to what it might come close to being in English:
The manges (singular mangas—the pronunciation
of the ‘g’ is hard in both plural and singular) were men who formed a
sub-culture on the fringe of society. Many of them were actually in the
underworld. The nearest equivalents in English are probably ‘spivs’,
‘wide-boys’ or ‘hep-cats’.
Given
the present time frame and keeping in mind Jeff Bridges’ portrayal of “The Dude”
in The Big Lebowski (and without Holst’s reference to the
underworld), I would most certainly prefer ‘dude’, man.
Elsie: You say no one to drive the car but What the hell, Bill, what’s that Red white and blue still upright Upholstered bucket seat On shoulder of congested arterial Doing there?
It’s deep winter down here In Hellas and we’re in A run of magic
Weather a wee bit of what I wager Your frigid, hard-up barbarians would love To bask in while they rape and plunder.
2.
Our assets, you say?
Hear those panpipes? Another of our classic Clear spring days, flocks of immaculate sheep And she-goats bleating in the meadows And behind the susurrating hedges-- Would you believe it?—a tangible
Corazon, lovesick old dog On your last legs, If only you could talk, You would tell us Whether the heart Shot through in youth By that piercing, fatal Arrow still quivers At the thought.
Let it be duly noted In the margins— On every grain of sand, The edge of the sea Remains elusive And indefinable, A boundary whose limits We could not plumb.
I found a copy of your Voices at the goodwill outlet Ready for the trash bin and rescued it Because it was bold enough To feature one of my favorite Magritte paintings as its cover— You know, the one with a man leaning On the edge of a bridge, looking At the water, with a lion behind him Looking the other way — Before then, I did not know Poetry could be one or two lines alone.
My gray-haired mentor used to urge me When you write, write one word at a time But keep it under your hat, boy! I was a tyro and thought it strange advice Indeed but kept my word out of respect, Which is why years later I have so many Of his bloody little louses sucking My gray matter dry.
Moderator's comments: I suspect the inspiration for this "poem" is fragment 92 of Heraclitus, to wit:
All men are equally mystified by unaccountable evidence, even Homer, wisest of the Greeks. He was mystified by children catching lice. He heard them say, What we have found and caught we throw away, what we have not found and caught we still have.
