Παρασκευή 21 Δεκεμβρίου 2012

Hopeless sailor


Life is changing and we change with it.

Life is like the music chairs.
Love, Happiness and Sadness are its chairs and when the music stops we are trying to sit on them. Some people sit together on the same chair, some other beside each other, some other to distant chairs, away from each other. We happened to sit to different chairs, but every day the music plays and stops, and we dont know to which chair we will sit next. Like when we were little children and we used to run happy, shouting and screaming. Now we run again, but not from Happiness. And Happiness is a chair that can be difficult occupied. Every time someone else has occupied that chair. And we run together around these feelings, like a carussel is going round and round, playing music in a Luna Park, full of people. And we, You and I, my Love, sat at first on these nice chairs. But the chairs break, my dear love, not all the chairs are strong. And we keep running, and trying to sit, and falling and beating and hurting ourselves. When something bleeds, has to stop bleeding. Not everyone can make it stop. Some other do it immediately, some other never manage it. Distance has never been a glass to be able to brake. This travel that is called distance has breaks of Happiness and Sadness, but our train all the time stops on the wrong stations. Who is the driver of this train, that has already broken brakes? Love, as they say, stays always, never loses, never hurts, just hopes. But Love has never been a permanent marker to stay, some time it loses its colour. Only a new marker can draw again, renew these lines of Love.

I have seen you standing on a fountain, wearing a blue dress, greeting you from far away, without knowing each other. And here we are again, drawing in this fountain. There is always a plan. Is ours? Is God' s plan? Everything is planned and drawed carefully and nicely. I dont know to where that train goes. To a wall, to an edge to the Hope. Because, my love, Hope and Faith are two chairs that you must be very blessed to make it to sit on them. For both are needed two, as they are two. Who sits on Hope and who on Faith?

We are given our life only once in this Life, and we all ended up making it a graveyard of lost hopes and desires. We have grabbed our life and we draw it from its hair. It is in pain, it bleeds, it vegetates.. It cries and wants to die. No one is wrong, no one is right. Life has been fair to us, has given us things, have given us nice presents which everyone would be jealous of, but these presents have never been common. We connive, because the only present in common we have been given apart from a new, shining, dying love, is blindness and deafness.

Like a small boat we fight in the waves, trying to save the least food that has remained in our storages. The Sea is deep, the Sky is far from us, and how will we be able to reach it since we have no wings? Ropes are holding us here, stuck on the ground, trying to cut them, but we dont reach them. When we managed to reach them, our knives werent strong enough. And if they used to be strong, now we dont reach each other s hands to collaborate.

Yes, I am thinking now and I see that distance is a glass, every day has been a glass. A glass of an unsoul monitor of a plastic mashine. That can die anytime, everything on this Earth is mortal. Some other die now, some other later. We see the Sun, welcoming the Moon. Behind the mountains only, over every single snowed edge can be found Love, Happiness, Hope and Passion. But we are still on these green grounds, trying to mow the died green nettle.. And it pains, my Love, when we touch it.. It pains...

Τρίτη 18 Δεκεμβρίου 2012

All I want for Christmas....

Δεν ξέρω για το κλίμα των Χριστουγέννων, ποτέ δε με ενδιέφερε. Αντιθέτως, με μελαγχολούσε και με μελαγχολεί... 
Αλλά, νομίζω ότι το ερωτικό κλίμα επικρατεί πάντα. Και στη ζωή μου. Γι' αυτό είπα να αφιερώσω κάποια από τα αγαπημένα μου τραγούδια, μιας και μου είναι αδύνατο, εδώ και καιρό, να γράψω...... Μήπως και μπορέσω να εκφράσω............ 


(ελληνικοί στίχοι στο video)
Adesso no non voglio
Più difendermi
Supererò dentro
Di me gli ostacoli
I miei momenti più
Difficili per te

There is no reason
There's no rhyme
It's crystal clear
I hear you voice and all
The darkness disappears
Every time I look
Into your eyes
You make me love you

Questo inverno finirà
I do truly love you
Fuori e dentro me

How you make me love you
Con le sue difficoltà
I do truly love you
I belong to you
You belong to me
Forever

Want you
Baby I want you and
I thought that you should
Know that I believe
You're the wind that's
Underneath my wings
I belong to you
You belong to me

Ho camminato su
Pensieri ripidi
You are my fantasy
Per solitudini
E deserti aridi
You are my gentle breeze
Al ritmo della tua passione
Oro io vivrò
And I'll never let you go
L'amore attraverserò
You're the piece
That makes me whole
Le onde dei suoi attimi
I can feel you in my soul
Profondi come oceani
Vincerò per te
Le paure che io sento

Quanto bruciano dentro
Le parole che non ho
Più detto, sai
Want you
Baby I want you and
I thought that you should
Know that I believe
Lampi nei silenzio siamo noi
I belong to you
You belong to me

You're the wind that's
Underneath my wings
I belong to you
You belong to me
Adesso io ti sento
I will belong forever
To you


Η πρώτη σκέψη όταν ξυπνάω μέσα στο μυαλό μου
κι η τελευταία είσαι εσύ
και σαν σημάδι ξαφνικά μου λέει το ένστικτό μου
κάτι καλό πως θα συμβεί
Από την μέρα που σε είδα έχω παραισθήσεις
συμβαίνουν πράγματα τρελά
ξέρω τι θέλεις να μου πεις χωρίς να το ζητήσεις
και η καρδιά μου σταματά

Η δύναμη που ασκείς σε μένα
όταν στα μάτια με κοιτάζεις
μου φαίνεται παραμυθένια
όταν σφιχτά με αγκαλιάζεις
Η δύναμη που ασκείς σε μένα
όταν στα μάτια με κοιτάζεις
μου φαίνεται παραμυθένια
και σαν βιβλίο με διαβάζεις

Και αν φύγεις θα χαθώ θα εξαφανιστώ
και στον πλανήτη γη δεν θα΄μαι κάτοικος εγώ
αν φύγεις θα χαθώ θα εξαφανιστώ
θα πάψω να υπάρχω
Και αν φύγεις θα χαθώ θα εξαφανιστώ
και στον πλανήτη γη δεν θα΄μαι κάτοικος εγώ
αν φύγεις θα χαθώ και πια δε θα μπορώ
αυτό που θέλω να΄χω

Όποιο στενό ή όποιο δρόμο και ν΄ακολουθήσω
έξω απ΄την πόρτα σου περνώ
για σένα αγάπη μου μπορώ σαν το κερί να σβήσω
έστω για λίγο αν δε σε δω
μαζί σου έφτασα ψηλά στην κορυφή του κόσμου
ξεπέρασα τη λογική
και το σενάριο της ζωής μου καταλήγει φως μου
με σένα πρωταγωνιστή

Η δύναμη που ασκείς σε μένα
όταν στα μάτια με κοιτάζεις
μου φαίνεται παραμυθένια
όταν σφιχτά με αγκαλιάζεις
Η δύναμη που ασκείς σε μένα
όταν στα μάτια με κοιτάζεις
μου φαίνεται παραμυθένια
και σαν βιβλίο με διαβάζεις

Και αν φύγεις θα χαθώ θα εξαφανιστώ
και στον πλανήτη γη δεν θα΄μαι κάτοικος εγώ
αν φύγεις θα χαθώ θα εξαφανιστώ
θα πάψω να υπάρχω
Και αν φύγεις θα χαθώ θα εξαφανιστώ
και στον πλανήτη γη δεν θα΄μαι κάτοικος εγώ
αν φύγεις θα χαθώ και πια δε θα μπορώ
αυτό που θέλω να΄χω......


Όχι δεν σε δίνω απόψε πίσω πια
Όχι δεν θα γίνει η αγάπη μοναξιά
Δεν μπορώ να σε κοιτάζω
Και τ'αντίο να διαβάζω...

Μείνε εδώ μαζί μου, σ'έχω ανάγκη
Φίλα με να μη χαθώ
Φτιάξε μου ένα παραμύθι να κρυφτώ
Μείνε για να μην τελειώσει ο χρόνος
Να μπορώ να ονειρευτώ
Κράτα με, για σένα είμαι εγώ...
Κράτα με, για σένα είμαι εγώ...

Λιώσαν τα φτερά μου, πέφτω χαμηλά
Για να με προλάβεις δως μου μια αγκαλιά
Σώσε απόψε τη ζωή μου
Μείνε εδώ, εδώ μαζί μου...

Μείνε εδώ μαζί μου, σ'έχω ανάγκη Φίλα με να μη χαθώ
Φτιάξε μου ένα παραμύθι να κρυφτώ
Μείνε για να μην τελειώσει ο χρόνος
Να μπορώ να ονειρευτώ
Κράτα με, για σένα είμαι εγώ...


Κρύψε με στην αγάπη σου,
στ' όνειρό σου, στο κρεβάτι σου
κρύψε με στο χαμόγελο
μες στο βλέμμα και το δάκρυ σου,
κρύψε με...

Κρύψε με στην αγάπη σου
ό,τι θέλω να φαντάζομαι,
κρύψε με μες στον κόσμο σου
κι αφήσέ με να σε νοιάζομαι,
κρύψε με στην αγάπη σου
στ' όνειρό σου, στο κρεβάτι σου.

Κρύψε με μες στη σκέψη σου
και τις νύχτες που αγάπησες
κρύψε με στο παράπονο
που στην άμμο το ζωγράφισες, 
κρύψε με...

Κυριακή 9 Δεκεμβρίου 2012

Χριστούγεννα, χωρίς αυτά ο χρόνος δεν ξεκινά...

Όσο κι αν μου τραγουδά ο Φοίβος για τα Χριστούγεννα, όσο κι αν μου ζητά να κλείσουν οι παλιές πληγές και ό,τι εύχομαι να ξεκινήσω, δεν μπορώ να ξεχάσω όσα με στιγμάτισαν τα προηγούμενα Χριστούγεννα. Ήταν τόσο γεμάτα με αγάπη, υπομονή, χαρά, πολλά υποσχόμενα για μια νέα αρχή Χριστούγεννα. Όλα τα αγαπημένα μου πρόσωπα γύρω.

Τώρα πλέον είμαι πίσω στο σπίτι. Το ίδιο σκηνικό. Στρωμένο χαλί, λίγα χριστουγεννιάτικα στολίδια εδώ και 'κει, το κρεββάτι μου να με περιμένει με αγκαλιές ανοιχτές να κοιμηθώ και ένας υπολογιστής άδειος, και όχι με την ελπίδα των τότε χρόνων. Ούτε τον Άι Βασίλη τον λένε πλέον μπαμπά, ούτε το ανοιξιάτικο κορίτσι μαμά είναι όπως πριν.

Δεν ξέρω αν πρέπει να δώσω μήνυμα χαράς και ελπίδας ή νοσταλγίας. Εμένα πλέον τα Χριστούγεννα με γυρίζουν πίσω, στις μοναδικές μνήμες που κρατούνται ζωντανές στο μυαλό μου, δυνατές. Το δεντράκι, ο χαμηλός φωτισμός, η προσευχή.. Και όλ' αυτά γιατί έφυγε αυτή, και πλέον δεν είναι εδώ, ούτε εγώ εκεί, για να μπορέσουμε να γιορτάσουμε όπως κάναμε παλιά, όπως συνήθως, πέντε χρόνια τώρα. Ούτε βοσκούς θα μαζέψω, ούτε μάγους από μακρυά. Θα προσπαθήσω όμως να ευχηθώ σε όλους μας και όλους σας χρόνια πολλά, χωρίς να προσποιούμαι τίποτα πια...



Σας αγαπώ όλους, γνωστούς και αγνώστους, αναγνώστες και μη αναγνώστες.
Γιορτάζουμε για να αλλάξουμε οριστικά Χρόνια Πολλά.

Δευτέρα 3 Δεκεμβρίου 2012

Μικρή νυχτερινή σκηνή: Ούτε σήμερα, ούτε αύριο..

[Fade in. Αγγελική φωνή τραγουδά]

Το αισθάνομαι, με αφήνεις πάλι..
Πότε θα έρθει το τέλος..;

Ούτε αύριο, ούτε σήμερα...

[Η μουσική παίζει στο παρασκήνιο. Τα δύο τραγικά πρόσωπα της ιστορίας κάθονται στο έδαφος, μέσα στο σκοτάδι. Χαμηλός φωτισμός. Τα χέρια του κοριτσιού είναι μέσα στου αγοριού τα χέρια. Πρώτα μιλάει το κορίτσι.]

- Nescentes...
- Panselina, τι συμβαίνει, μάτια μου;
- Τώρα καταλαβαίνω γιατί είμαι ακόμα εδώ. Εγώ είμαι, ίδια, όπως πάντα..
- Panselina..
- Μείνε μαζί μου, Nescentes. Φοβάμαι, βοήθησέ με..
- Θα γυρίσω πίσω σε εσένα, για σένα. Μην αναρωτηθείς ξανά γιατί να υπάρχεις.. Δεν θέλω να σε χάσω..
- Το αισθάνομαι..
- Μην με αφήσεις ξανά..
- Πότε θα έρθει το τέλος..;

[Fade in. Αγγελικό τραγούδι]

Ούτε αύριο, ούτε σήμερα..
Μην με αφήνεις..

[Fade out. Μικρός φωτισμός πάνω τους. Έρχεται ο άλλος άγγελος]

Τραγούδησε.. Τραγούδησε, μικρέ μου άγγελε. Τραγούδησέ μας σήμερα, μόνο για μας.

[Οι δύο άγγελοι ενώνουν τις φωνές τους. Αγκαλιασμένοι πετούν προς τον Ουρανό]
- Το αισθάνομαι..
- Τραγούδησε..
- Μη με αφήσεις ποτέ ξανά..
- Τραγούδησε μικρέ μου άγγελε.
- Φοβάμαι..
- Σ' αγαπώ..





[Αφηγητής]
Πάντα ήταν μακρυά ο ένας από τον άλλον. Πάντα αγαπούσαν, πάντα ήλπιζαν.. Έτσι τις κρατούσε τα χέρια μέσα στη σκέψη του. Έτσι του μιλούσε για τις φοβίες της, μέσα από το χρώμα του Φεγγαριού.. Ήταν πάντα στον παράδεισο που είχαν μαζί πλάσει μέσα στη σκέψη τους. Εκεί πετούσαν οι Άγγελοι, μαζί αγκαλιασμένοι, μια ψυχή.. Ενωμένη να ενωθεί με τον Ουρανό..


Σάββατο 1 Δεκεμβρίου 2012

Οι στιγμές που περνάν' και χάνονται

Έτσι δειλά - δειλά αναλογίζομαι τον χαμένο χρόνο που περνά.
Τι θα μπορούσα να κάνω δυόμιση ώρες; Πώς θα μπορούσα να είχα περάσει τον χρόνο αυτόν χρήσιμα;

Άλλη μια φορά πέρασε η μέρα σχεδόν χωρίς να γεμίσω την ψυχή μου με καινούρια πράγματα.
Πώς πέρασαν πάλι έτσι δυόμιση ώρες; Ήρθε η στιγμή, πέρασε και χάθηκε. Πολλά είπαμε. Κι όμως,
αν έρθει κάποιος και με ρωτήσει πώς ήταν η μέρα μου, δεν θα έχω να μοιραστώ κάτι μαζί του. Ούτε
μαζί της..

Τι όμορφη εκείνη η καινούρια φωνή. Τι είχα χάσει; Τι είχα ξεχάσει; Πόσα όμορφα πράγματα περνάνε από δίπλα μας καθημερίνα που δεν τα προσέχουμε.. Και όταν τα προσέξουμε, θέλουμε να τα ακούμε συνέχεια. Θα σου πω την αλήθεια, τώρα, που το Φεγγάρι δεν με ακούει. Είναι δύο του μηνός και έχει ήδη αρχίσει να πεθαίνει. Με έκανε να αισθανθώ όμορφα εκείνη η φωνή.. Δεν ήταν η δική σου, ούτε κάποιου οικείου.. Και αυτό την κάνει ακόμα πιο συναρπαστική..

Έχω ξεχάσει πια τι είναι η αγάπη.. Πόσο μάλλον ο έρωτας. Πώς θα φτάσω στην αγάπη, ενώ έχασα τον δρόμο; Και το Φεγγάρι πέφτει, βγήκε από την Θάλασσα και πάει να κρυφτεί πίσω από τα βουνά. Όπως κι εγώ, μόνος στον δρόμο, βγαίνω από την μεγάλη οδό και πορεύομαι προς τα στενά σοκάκια του Λαυρίου.. Της Αθήνας.. Της Θεσσαλονίκης.. Πόσο όμορφα ηχεί στα αφτιά μου η κάθε μιά τους, όταν η γνώριμη μελωδία του χασάπικου αντιχεί μέσα στα στενά σοκάκια. Μαζί με το σακάκι μου, το καπέλο μου και τα γυαλισμένα μου παπούτσια, κρατώ πάνω μου την Αγάπη εκείνη που έχω για εσένα, Φεγγάρι μου. Αλλά φεύγεις. Βγαίνεις από την Θάλασσα και κρύβεσαι πίσω από τα βουνά. Ανατέλεις κρυφά, χάνεσαι στα Σύννεφα τον Χειμώνα. Μετά εμφανίζεσαι και πάλι σε χάνω πίσω από τα βουνά.

Είχα κλάψει τότε, δεν άντεχα την ιδέα εκείνη της απόστασης. Εσύ όμως κάνεις κάθε μέρα αυτή τη διαδρομή. Φαίνεσαι, χάνεσαι.. Εμφανίζεσαι και μου χαμογελάς. Μ' αγαπάς, Σ' αγαπώ.. Εκεί πίσω από τα βουνά, θα έρθω κάποια μέρα να σε βρω, Φεγγάρι μου, Πανσέληνέ μου, Ήλιε μου και Πούλια μου..


υγ: ο Αυγερινός σου...

Κυριακή 30 Σεπτεμβρίου 2012

Dedicated to this day, full of this beautiful Fullmoon... Dedicated to a soul that grows up and lives away from my hug...

Moonlight Sonata

A spring evening. A large room in an old house. A woman of a certain age, dressed in black, is speaking to a young man. They have not turned on the lights. Through both windows the moonlight shines relentlessly. I forgot to mention that the Woman in Black has published two or three interesting volume of poetry with a religious flavour. So, the Woman in Black is speaking to the Young Man: 

Let me come with you. What a moon there is tonight!
The moon is kind – it won’t show
that my hair turned white. The moon
will turn my hair to gold again. You wouldn’t understand.
Let me come with you ...
When there’s a moon the shadows in the house grow larger,
invisible hands draw the curtains,
a ghostly finger writes forgotten words in the dust
on the piano – I don’t want to hear them. Hush.

Let me come with you
a little farther down, as far as the brickyard wall,
to the point where the road turns and the city appears
concrete and airy, whitewashed with moonlight,
so indifferent and insubstantial
so positive, like metaphysics,
that finally you can believe you exist and do not exist,
that you never existed, that time with its destruction never existed.
Let me come with you ...

We’ll sit for a little on the low wall, up on the hill,
and as the spring breeze blows around us
perhaps we’ll even imagine that we are flying,
because, often, and now especially, I hear the sound of my own dress
like the sound of two powerful wings opening and closing,
and when you enclose yourself within the sound of that flight
you feel the tight mesh of your throat, your ribs, your flesh,
and thus constricted amid the muscles of the azure air,
amid the strong nerves of the heavens,
it makes no difference whether you go or return
and it makes no difference that my hair has turned white
(that is not my sorrow – my sorrow is
that my heart too does not turn white).
Let me come with you ...

I know that each one of us travels to love alone,
alone to faith and to death.
I know it. I’ve tried it. It doesn’t help.
Let me come with you ...

This house is haunted, it preys on me –
what I mean is, it has aged a great deal, the nails are working loose,
the portraits drop as though plunging into the void,
the plaster falls without a sound
as the dead man’s hat falls from the peg in the dark hallway
as the worn woolen glove falls from the knee of silence
or as moonbeam falls on the old, gutted armchair.

Once it too was new – not the photograph that you are starting at so dubiously –
I mean the armchair, very comfortable, you could sit in it for hours
with your eyes closed and dream whatever came into your head
>– a sandy beach, smooth, wet, shining in the moonlight,
shining more than my old patent leather shoes that I send each month to the shoeshine shop on the corner,
or a fishing boat’s sail that sinks to the bottom rocked by its own breathing,
a three-cornered sail like a handkerchief folded slantwise in half only
as though it had nothing to shut up or hold fast
no reason to flutter open in farewell. I have always has a passion for handkerchiefs,
not to keep anything tied in them,
no flower seeds or camomile gathered in the fields at sunset,
nor to tie them with four knots like the caps the workers wear on the construction site across the street,
nor to dab my eyes – I’ve kept my eyesight good;
I’ve never worn glasses. A harmless idiosyncracy, handkerchiefs.

Now I fold them in quarters, in eighths, in sixteenths
to keep my fingers occupied. And now I remember
that this is how I counted the music when I went to the Odeion
with a blue pinafore and a white collar, with two blond braids
– 8, 16, 32, 64 –
hand in hand with a small friend of mine, peachy, all light and picked flowers,
(forgive me such digressions – a bad habit) – 32, 64 – and my family rested
great hopes on my musical talent. But I was telling you about the armchair –
gutted – the rusted springs are showing, the stuffing –
I thought of sending it next door to the furniture shop,
but where’s the time and the money and the inclination – what to fix first? –
I thought of throwing a sheet over it – I was afraid
of a white sheet in so much moonlight. People sat here
who dreamed great dreams, as you do and I too,
and now they rest under earth untroubled by rain or the moon.
Let me come with you ...

We’ll pause for a little at the top of St. Nicholas’ marble steps,
and afterward you’ll descend and I will turn back,
having on my left side the warmth from a casual touch of your jacket
and some squares of light, too, from small neighbourhood windows
and this pure white mist from the moon, like a great procession of silver swans –
and I do not fear this manifestation, for at another time
on many spring evenings I talked with God who appeared to me
clothed in the haze and glory of such a moonlight –
and many young men, more handsome even than you, I sacrificed to him –
I dissolved, so white, so unapproachable, amid my white flame, in the whiteness of moonlight,
burnt up by men’s voracious eyes and the tentative rapture of youths,
besieged by splendid bronzed bodies,
strong limbs exercising at the pool, with oars, on the track, at soccer (I pretended not to see them),
foreheads, lips and throats, knees, fingers and eyes,
chests and arms and thighs (and truly I did not see them)
– you know, sometimes, when you’re entranced, you forget what entranced you, the entrancement alone is enough –
my God, what star-bright eyes, and I was lifted up to an apotheosis of disavowed stars
because, besieged thus from without and from within,
no other road was left me save only the way up or the way down. – No, it is not enough.
Let me come with you ...

I know it’s very late. Let me,
because for so many years – days, nights, and crimson noons – I’ve stayed alone,
unyielding, alone and immaculate,
even in my marriage bed immaculate and alone,
writing glorious verses to lay on the knees of God,
verses that, I assure you, will endure as if chiselled in flawless marble
beyond my life and your life, well beyond. It is not enough.
Let me come with you ...

This house can’t bear me anymore.
I cannot endure to bear it on my back.
You must always be careful, be careful,
to hold up the wall with the large buffet
to hold up the table with the chairs
to hold up the chairs with your hands
to place your shoulder under the hanging beam.
And the piano, like a closed black coffin. You do not dare to open it.
You have to be so careful, so careful, lest they fall, lest you fall. I cannot bear it.
Let me come with you ...

This house, despite all its dead, has no intention of dying.
It insists on living with its dead
on living off its dead
on living off the certainty of its death
and on still keeping house for its dead, the rotting beds and shelves.
Let me come with you ...

Here, however quietly I walk through the mist of evening,
whether in slippers or barefoot,
there will be some sound: a pane of glass cracks or a mirror,
some steps are heard – not my own.
Outside, in the street, perhaps these steps are not heard –
repentance, they say, wears wooden shoes –
and if you look into this or that other mirror,
behind the dust and the cracks,
you discern – darkened and more fragmented – your face,
your face, which all your life you sought only to keep clean and whole.
The lip of the glass gleams in the moonlight
like a round razor – how can I lift it to my lips?
however much I thirst – how can I lift it – Do you see?
I am already in a mood for similes – this at least is left me,
reassuring me still that my wits are not failing.
Let me come with you ...

At times, when evening descends, I have the feeling
that outside the window the bear-keeper is going by with his old heavy she-bear,
her fur full of burrs and thorns,
stirring dust in the neighborhood street
a desolate cloud of dust that censes the dusk,
and the children have gone home for supper and aren’t allowed outdoors again,
even though behind the walls they divine the old bear’s passing –
and the tired bear passes in the wisdom of her solitude, not knowing wherefore and why –
she’s grown heavy, can no longer dance on her hind legs,
can’t wear her lace cap to amuse the children, the idlers, the importunate,
and all she wants is to lie down on the ground
letting them trample on her belly, playing thus her final game,
showing her dreadful power for resignation,
her indifference to the interest of others, to the rings in her lips, the compulsion of her teeth,
her indifference to pain and to life
with the sure complicity of death – even a slow death –
her final indifference to death with the continuity and knowledge of life
which transcends her enslavement with knowledge and with action.

But who can play this game to the end?
And the bear gets up again and moves on
obedient to her leash, her rings, her teeth,
smiling with torn lips at the pennies the beautiful and unsuspecting children toss
(beautiful precisely because unsuspecting)
and saying thank you. Because bears that have grown old
can say only one thing: thank you; thank you.
Let me come with you ...

This house stifles me. The kitchen especially
is like the depths of the sea. The hanging coffee pots gleam
like round, huge eyes of improbable fish,
the plates undulate slowly like medusas,
seaweed and shells catch in my hair – later I can’t pull them loose –
I can’t get back to the surface –
the tray falls silently from my hands – I sink down
and I see the bubbles from my breath rising, rising
and I try to divert myself watching them
and I wonder what someone would say who happened to be above and saw these bubbles,
perhaps that someone was drowning or a diver exploring the depths?

And in fact more than a few times I’ve discovered there, in the depths of drowning,
coral and pearls and treasures of shipwrecked vessels,
unexpected encounters, past, present, and yet to come,
a confirmation almost of eternity,
a certain respite, a certain smile of immortality, as they say,
a happiness, an intoxication, inspiration even,
coral and pearls and sapphires;
only I don’t know how to give them – no, I do give them;
only I don’t know if they can take them – but still, I give them.
Let me come with you ...

One moment while I get my jacket.
The way this weather’s so changeable, I must be careful.
It’s damp in the evening, and doesn’t the moon
seem to you, honestly, as if it intensifies the cold?
Let me button your shirt – how strong your chest is
– how strong the moon – the armchair, I mean – and whenever I lift the cup from the table
a hole of silence is left underneath. I place my palm over it at once
so as not to see through it – I put the cup back in its place;
and the moon’s a hole in the skull of the world – don’t look through it,
it’s a magnetic force that draws you – don’t look, don’t any of you look,
listen to what I’m telling you – you’ll fall in. This giddiness,
beautiful, ethereal – you will fall in –
the moon’s marble well,
shadows stir and mute wings, mysterious voices – don’t you hear them?

Deep, deep the fall,
deep, deep the ascent,
the airy statue enmeshed in its open wings,
deep, deep the inexorable benevolence of the silence –
trembling lights on the opposite shore, so that you sway in your own wave,
the breathing of the ocean. Beautiful, ethereal
this giddiness – be careful, you’ll fall. Don’t look at me,
for me my place is this wavering – this splendid vertigo. And so every evening
I have little headache, some dizzy spells.

Often I slip out to the pharmacy across the street for a few aspirin,
but at times I’m too tired and I stay here with my headache
and listen to the hollow sound the pipes make in the walls,
or drink some coffee, and, absentminded as usual,
I forget and make two – who’ll drink the other?
It’s really funny, I leave it on the windowsill to cool
or sometimes drink them both, looking out the window at the bright green globe of the pharmacy
that’s like the green light of a silent train coming to take me away
with my handkerchiefs, my run-down shoes, my black purse, my verses,
but no suitcases – what would one do with them?
Let my come with you ...

Oh, are you going? Goodnight. No, I won’t come. Goodnight.
I’ll be going myself in a little. Thank you. Because, in the end, I must
get out of this broken-down house.
I must see a bit of the city – no, not the moon –
the city with its calloused hands, the city of daily work,
the city that swears by bread and by its fist,
the city that bears all of us on its back
with our pettiness, sins, and hatreds,
our ambitions, our ignorance and our senility.
I need to hear the great footsteps of the city,
and no longer to hear your footsteps
or God’s, or my own. Goodnight.

The room grows dark. It looks as though a cloud may have covered the moon. All at once, as if someone had turned up the radio in the nearby bar, a very familiar musical phrase can be heard. Then I realize that “The Moonlight Sonata”, just the first movement, has been playing very softly through this entire scene. The Young Man will go down the hill now with an ironic and perhaps sympathetic smile on his finely chiselled lips and with a feeling of release. Just as he reaches St. Nicolas, before he goes down the marble steps, he will laugh – a loud, uncontrollable laugh. His laughter will not sound at all unseemly beneath the moon. Perhaps the only unseemly thing will be that nothing is unseemly. Soon the Young Man will fall silent, become serious, and say: “The decline of an era.” So, thoroughly calm once more, he will unbutton his shirt again and go on his way. As for the woman in black, I don’t know whether she finally did get out of the house. The moon is shining again. And in the corners of the room the shadows intensify with an intolerable regret, almost fury, not so much for the life, as for the useless confession. Can you hear? The radio plays on: