Manos Loizos / Μάνος Λοΐζος

First of May, and from the Bastille
they set out, the hearts of the students;
thousands of banners- red- black-
Frederick, Katrine and Simone

In the streets, in the crowds
I run through the streets, I search the crowds
where is the girl, the girl that I love

Tell me Maria, do you remember by any chance
that late afternoon I took you in my arms
first of May, just like at present
and I was kissing your long hair

In the streets, in the crowds
I run through the streets, I search the crowds
where is the girl, the girl that I love

First of May, it’s gloomy to be away from home
close the window, don’t let the child get cold

Πρώτη Μαΐου μαύρα τα ξένα
κλείσε το τζάμι μην κρυώσει το παιδί

I follow you, into your pocket I slip
like a two-drachma coin so small
I follow you and I know that I fit
inside the hollow at the base of your throat

Come, hold me tight and take a walk with me,
into your magical depths
take me with you into your deep kiss
don’t leave me alone, I will be lost

I follow you, I stick to you
like a light summer shirt;
I follow you, I touch you and I feel pain,
I close my eyes and I follow you

And if your eyes do not cry
they have a way and they tell me
of the pain they hurt
With a sad look
cloudy morning
they ask about spring

They look at me, they talk to me and they wonder
ah, your eyes
They ask about the dreams we made
ah, your eyes

Dissatisfied eyes
eyes which are for me
seas of patience
With silver threads
I knit your hidden worries
into a song of life.

A few carnations remain in the flower-pots
On the plain, they will by now have ploughed the earth
They scatter the seed
They have gathered the olives
All things prepare themselves for winter.

And I, filled with your absence
Charged with the longing for the great journeys
I am waiting like an anchored freighter
in the middle of Bursa.*

Κι εγώ γεμάτος απ’ την απουσία σου
Φορτωμένος με την ανυπομονησία
των μεγάλων ταξιδιών …
Περιμένω σαν αγκυροβολημένο φορτηγό
μέσα στην Προύσα ..
μέσα στην Προύσα …

Life is not a joke
You must take it seriously,
the way, let’s say, a squirrel does,
Without from the onset or from now on expecting anything.
You will have nothing else except only to live.

Life is not a joke
You must take it seriously
But so, so seriously
That, let’s say, leaning against a wall
with your hands tied
Or in a laboratory
With a white shirt and big glasses
You are willing to die, in order for people to live,
People whose faces you have never seen
and you will die knowing well
That nothing more beautiful, nothing more real
than life exists.

You must take it seriously
But so, so seriously
That you will plant, let’s say,
olive trees, even in your seventies
Not at all because they will remain for your children
But just like that, because you will not believe in death
Even as you fear it
But just like that, because life wants to weigh
more in the scale.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

How beautiful it is to think of you
inside the noises of death
and victory
To think of you
inside the prison
and having passed forty

How beautiful it is to think of you
there is your one hand
on a sky-blue fabric forgotten,
forgotten

And there- I am in your hair
the proud nonchalance
of Istanbul, my land

How beautiful it is to think of you.
to write words about you,
to watch you as I lie
thus on my back in my cell
A word that you had spoken
on that particular day,
in that very place
Not the word itself
but that way it had,
in which it had inside it
enclosed, the whole world

How beautiful it is to think of you
For you I will still investigate
so many things
I will make a little box,
a ring
I will weave three fathoms of silk
and suddenly bolt upright
running to grasp in my palms
the bars of the window
And to shout to the blue sky
of freedom,
all of my songs
that I wrote for you

(translation: Eva Johanos)

The most beautiful sea
is the one on which we have not yet sailed
The most beautiful child has not grown up yet

Our most beautiful days,
our most beautiful days, we have not yet lived
We have not yet lived.

And the most beautiful
the most beautiful I want to tell you
I have not told you yet, I have not told you yet.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

On this bank
on the sea’s doorstep
the rain like a net enfolds me
To the days of rain a white flag
A white flag on the mast is raised

It rains and suddenly it is easy
easy to die
and just as easy to wait for death
to await death

(translation: Eva Johanos)

The wind flows and leaves
the same wind never moves twice
the same branch of the cherry tree

The birds sing in the tree
they are wings that want to fly

Here the door is closed
I must throw it down
I must see you my beloved

Ah, may life be beautiful as you are
ah, may it be, may it be a friend
may it be beloved, as you are

I know- it has not ended
the symposium of sorrow
but it will end…

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Το ξέρω – ακόμα δεν τελείωσε
της δυστυχίας το συμπόσιο
μα θα τελειώσει…

That day won’t be long in coming
when I’ll see you again in front of me.
The sunlight will be broken
and you will be running towards me.

Your forehead will be spreading
golden rain in the sky
and your nice face
will be paler than the moon.

And when our hearts will become one
everything will be shining differently
and the whole old world
will vanish in our shadows.

That day won’t be long in coming,
my hunted bird,
the West once took you away,
the East is bringing you back.

Η μέρα κείνη δε θ’ αργήσει
κυνηγημένο μου πουλί
σε πήρε κάποτε η δύση
σε ξαναφέρνει η ανατολή

They told him, “You will wear the green
You’ll march in front, proud, lean and mean
You’ll march in front, proud, lean and mean
And.. you will be a hero.”

He doesn’t really ever speak
His uniform, it doesn’t fit
The uniform, it doesn’t fit
The boots.. torture on his feet

The marching cadence that I taught him to recite
It is monotonous and makes him want to cry
It is monotonous and makes him want to cry
The marching cadence that I taught him to recite

No letters ever came from home
He’d rise up early on his own
He’d rise up early on his own…
And.. he’d speak of mistakes

One day he drank till he was gone
He threw aside the uniform
He threw aside the uniform
And.. cried all alone

The marching cadence that I taught him to recite
It is monotonous and he’s ashamed to cry
It is monotonous and he’s ashamed to cry
The marching cadence that I taught him to recite

In my old neighborhood I had a friend
who knew how to play the accordion
when he sang he was the spitting image of the sun
fires in his hands were ignited by the accordion

But one evening, dark like all the others
he kept a look-out as he played the accordion
Fascist lorries stood by the fence
and one burst of gunfire stopped the accordion

The slogan which was started always comes back to me
whenever I hear, since then, the accordion
and like a stamp it has marked my life
“It shall not prevail, fascism!”

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Τ’ αρχινισμένο σύνθημα πάντα μου μένει
όποτε ακούω από τότε ακορντεόν
κι έχει σαν στάμπα τη ζωή μου σημαδέψει
δε θα περάσει ο φασισμός

Ήλιε μου, καλο-ήλιε μου, στο καλό χρυσό πουλί μου,
κι αύριο με την αυγή, στο μπαλκόνι, στην αυλή μου,
έλα μου, χρυσό πουλί μου.

Ach my swallow, how can you fly
in this blackened sky?
the sunset is dripping blood
and how will you cry, how will you cry,
ach my swallow

Ach my palikari [brave young man], the trains have left,
there is no road to leave the country,
and those who spoke of liberation,
tell me where they went, tell me where they went,
ach my palikari

Ach my dear little heart, imprisoned,
the sun you are awaiting does not come,
only the town-crier in the market-place
deafens you, he deafens you,
ach my poor little heart

Άχου καρδούλα μου φυλακισμένη
δε βγαίνει ο ήλιος που καρτεράς
μόνο ο ντελάλης της αγοράς
σε ξεκουφαίνει σε ξεκουφαίνει
άχου καρδούλα μου

Riding the dolphin
I circled the world
I said I would forget you
but I missed you

Dolphin, little dolphin
let’s go faster
to see her curly
eyelashes

Wherever I rambled
you came behind me
wounds in the breast
my sea journey

Dolphin, little dolphin
let’s go faster
to see her curly
eyelashes

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Δελφίνι δελφινάκι
πάμε πιο γρήγορα
Να δω τα γυριστά της
τα ματοτσίνορα

From ancient Alicarnassus
ach, Elissaki, Elisso,
and from Santorini
ach, my sweet little mandarine
ach, my sweet one, ach

I sent you a letter, a written one,
and I got no answer
My fate is black and cut in two
My fate is black and cut in two
Elisso

From ancient Alicarnassus
ach, Elissaki, Elisso,
one holy day I went
to the Agia Sofia in The City **
to the Agia Sofia

and I lit a votive lamp and a candle
Be well, my lady!
even if you do not want my joy
even if you do not want my joy
Elisso

From ancient Alicarnassus
ach, Elissaki, Elisso,
I am sending you my heart
my Venetian florins ***
Venetian ones

And if you don’t want me, do not say it
the foreign lands are bitter
without you to think about
without you to think about
Elisso

[translator's notes:
* Elisso and Elissaki are both diminutive forms of the Greek equivalent of the name "Elizabeth"
** The great byzantine church of Saint Sofia in Constantinople, I Poli = The City), still to be visited as a mosque in Istanbul.
*** "Sending my heart" = sending love, but "sending Venetian florins" means a bride price, he's formally asking for her hand in marriage.]

Come let me show you the roses,
the green, the red, the houses, the courtyards.

How I love you, little bird of the road,
how I love you, how I love you.
Come let me tell you, my sweet boy
how I love you, how I love you.

Come let me teach you, how the kiss is,
like the red rose and like the sunrise

How I love you, little bird of the road,
how I love you, how I love you.
Come let me tell you, my sweet boy
how I love you, how I love you.

Come let me show you the blond wheat
the stars which grow silent so I can go to sleep

How I love you, little bird of the road,
how I love you, how I love you.
Come let me tell you, my sweet boy
how I love you, how I love you.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Death wounds the birds on the wing
and the deer when they lean to drink water
and me, a tree planted in earth,
he uproots me every dawn.

My Sun, I beg you
tell the bereaved ones
to cry in the sea of bitterness
for us, the betrayed ones.

Like a murderer in the dark night I stay awake
I drink tears, I swallow vile smoke
with knives in my heart I cannot
sing nor hope…

My Sun, I beg you
tell the bereaved ones
to cry in the sea of bitterness
for us, the betrayed ones.

Ήλιε μου σε παρακαλώ
πες τους χαροκαμένους
να κλαιν στης πίκρας το γιαλό
για μας τους προδομένους

Everything reminds me of you
Simple, beloved,
everyday things of yours
seem to be waiting along with me
for you to come; even if there was no other sunrise to follow

All our love fills the room
just like a song we used to sing together
Faces and words, and this dream that now is creaking…
What will be true, when the dawn comes?

Everything reminds me of you
Simple, beloved,
everyday things of yours…

Everything reminds me of you
All our closest friends
are now in the tavern, or at the cinema
On my own here, I’m reading the letter you had sent me
Before we kissed for the very first time

All our love fills the room
just like a song we used to sing together
Faces and words, and this dream that now is creaking…
What will be true, when the dawn comes?

Everything reminds me of you
Simple, beloved,
everyday things of yours…

Almost fifty years
of hardship and persecution
Now this black sickness,
inequitable payment
Your rightful combat
deprived you of many things
but life is a woman in labour
she gave birth to hopes.

Nothing lost or wasted
in your thrown-away life
I revive your dream
And your every “why”

You never say that fate
has been unjust to you
but only History
spoke to you differently.
Hunched over in the café
deep in thought in the streets
but yesterday in the demonstration
you walked by smiling.