Greek Avant Garde Poetry



     

Mimis Lymberakis






IN THE TOWERS OF ENGLAND THE BIG INSTRUMENTS



In the towers of England during stormy nights
 
the  big instruments echo 

when the fingers of cheroubims in times of boredom

raise the hymns of Handel and Bach.

In stormy nights

when  the lighthouses  are  covered  by  the ocean's  waves
 
and hopeless invocations, ghost voices of shipwrecks,

penetrate the winds.

But  the breaking dawn with the silver cymbals

and the winged touch

will bring the full-lighted day elsewhere

in  the banks of  Arno.

There, exotic virgins from Albion,

will scatter the roses of their ephemeral existence.

Then the spiders in the joints of  instruments

will knit the veils of forgetfulness.

In dismayed chambers

the veils of oblivion will spread.

And from  the grassy cenotaph,

which keeps engraved their charming  name

and  their sculptured pleading form

in the sorrow of the foggyish parks

only in northern nights

the passing of  deers. 


(Transl. Panos Bosnakis)