Greek Avant Garde Poetry



     

Stavros Tornes






FAREWELL ANATOLIA


Farewell  Anatolia ... 

perhaps you may not want to know
 
that you to me 

left a scar forever

a scar like those in the primitive caves

that survived in the ages of ages forever, Ahmet,

and that will only be extinguished  if

when  the earth will be consumed 

by the universe, Mehmet 

or  when my body by the  earth, Khalil 

. . . Goodbye.



Then  I was left alone,
 
surrounded  by your senses
 
of  your presence 

without your specific face 

without your  light  sweaty hands 

—	left with  nothing-
 
crying  

as bureaucrats every night do

betrayed by the Third International.



1973. . Year of cholera and amnesty. 

'There are jobs for everyone.
 
And one is promised to you.

You must not forget that we are now able to go to the moon.
 
There will be new jobs.
 
Then ...
 
there will be salary guaranteed for everyone 

reform or progress
 
for all the people, 

and in a little further from now
 
which has been guessed already

socialism 

with a democratic face, of course ... 

or if you wish the one with the self-management

and don't play it smart 
with suicide or revolution 

because we will set up new posts for them as well.



I surrendered to them 

I stayed forever 

in the dried rivers of Calabria 

with the rounded stones.
 
Work of sun and water
 
of water and sun. Eyes
 
eyes of the locals. 

Navigable rivers 

Of an endless hinterland.



In the Palestinian revolution 

I am who I am 

present or past 

And what follows . . . for centuries or seconds I swim 

I run around the seas I fly 

I walk on earth
 
I arrive

Ali —

Ambouleila —

Mesir.



In the certainty of our  important meeting 

there are no dead

because everyone is free
 
to become what he wishes

a bird, leaf, tear, wind, fog, love, star, God through our very intimate relationship.


From his film Farewell Anatolia (1975)

(Translated from the Greek by Panos Bosnakis)