Haris & Panos Katsimichas / Χάρης & Πάνος Κατσιμίχας

Beautiful day
In your coolness
My words are smiling
Love takes the songs

Beautiful day
In your coolness
I forgot myself
I forgot myself

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Come into my dream and take a walk
and if you stand in the same places
and if you love the same music
it will mean that we did not find each other by accident
it will mean that it didn’t blow by chance
the wind that melds the lives of people together

Small summer, hidden fire
deep in my heart you now burn
small summer, hidden fire
deep in my heart you simmer

Fake songs surround me
I close my ears, I close my eyes
and I travel into the light of another time
and I write your name in red
the red ink of love
and I am here and I can bear it even though it is blowing from every direction.

Small summer, hidden fire
deep in my heart you now burn
small summer, hidden fire
deep in my heart you simmer

(translation: Eva Johanos)

That empty glance in my mirror
somewhere I know it well from long ago
Looking at me like the grey girls who loved me
some pale plump girls with glasses

The ones you to whom you don’t give a second glance
hotels of love at night
Where you wait for the storm to pass and afterwards
leave, and they watch you, saddened

They know it from the start but they always hope
when they give you their kiss with anguish
They see it in your eyes
you see it in theirs
a pile of “we’re finished” their life
There remained to me my theories and the words
one “we’re finished,” myself as well, in your life
I left like a thief, without saying anything
and I didn’t take into account your own bitterness

A ridiculous, loudmouthed rooster*
and wherever it gets me I puff myself up
A dull-witted and dizzy little man
in the folklore of my phallus making a fool of myself

Girls of apology in your eyes
it is a sorrow that I myself have not forgotten
Girls, grey fairies of love
whatever I was to lose I have lost

From what remained to me, this song
I give to you tonight, as I stay up late, alone,
it seems stupid but it is the flower
it is the caress and the words that I owe
it is the soft caress that I owe to you.

(Translation: Eva Johanos
*this use of the word “big rooster” implies a man who boasts, and in the following line the verb “κοκορεύομαι” literally means make a rooster of myself, crow or brag)

Ach, what will become of that child
my mother said secretly behind me
the way she saw me, spending the evening alone
with a Hoehner piccolo in my childish hands

Ach what will he become tomorrow among the dogs and the wolves
the way she saw me, spending the evening alone on the terrace
lost, watching the ships that were leaving, all lit up, for the islands
far away in Peiraia

However, I wanted neither jackal, nor lamb,
neither jackal nor dog did I want to become
I only wanted to have been born a tree
so the birds might stand in my shade
to sing the celebration of love, to sing…

Like two small breaths the years passed
but I remained the same
my hair grew a little white
shadows made my eyes grow heavier
I still spend the evening with that wheezy harmonica

Still they leave, lit up, the ships from Peiraia
The ships, lit up, leave for the islands…

(translation: Eva Johanos)

How did we forget each other, alone here
four winters passed already
my love, absent-minded love
tonight they weigh on me like centuries

I say I’ll go to get tipsy
to play again for a bit and lose ourselves
to think of you and feel nostalgia for you
and if there is a reason to return

Ah, how I have forgotten myself with you here
with your love that makes me disappear
my love, absent-minded love
in the silence I hear the house humming

I say I’ll go to get tipsy
to play again for a bit and lose ourselves
to think of you and feel nostalgia for you
and if there is a reason to return

(translation: Eva Johanos)

It seems to me like it was yesterday
but it has been so many years
since I held your body
like a violin in my hands

With the radio slowly
in the soft darkness
you would have been frightened if you knew
how much I loved you

Nothing has changed
and nothing is like it used to be
there is still a stick-to-itiveness
which is not only a habit

Laugh, laugh my bird laugh
Laugh because life is a madness

Red moon, seas of tequila
leaves (that are) thown into the fire
red moon, red seaport
you did something to me

I saw many people who lived for fun
and I saw others who took it seriously
and they got troubled and are still in deep trouble
and in the end it cost them dearly.

With the black Clothes, friends smoke speechless,
and they dream of going far away.
Those friends who found nothing to love
who believe in nothing, nobody, nowhere.

There exist a thousand ways to go crazy
and another as many (ways) to say “Patience”
but it is too late for me to go crazy
and even more late to be patient.

I will remain here and exist as I can
and for your stubborness, pigs, I will endure
I will await different days.

I have forgotten you by now
Yet my blood still remembers you
The winter is here
Yet deep in the ground
Yet deep in the ground
The sun of the summer is sleeping, is sleeping.

Like a color that I dreamt and I can’t remember anymore,
And like a wound that time denied to heal
Fire made out of flesh, a naked shadow
The only thing I remember now
Is your long fingers…

Maybe it was the dim light of the bedroom,
Maybe it was the shadows that were dancing on the walls
And the far away sounds from the street…
Maybe it was your white warm body, maybe,
That made the moments look like enternal

Fire made out of flesh, a naked shadow
The only thing I remember now
Is your long fingers…
Fire made out of flesh, a naked shadow
The only thing I remember now
Is your long fingers…

The river is fighting to get to the sea
and the poet is looking to find his muse
the wave is looking for the coast
and I am looking for you, for you who had me waiting at our first rendez-vous.

I was looking for my trouble and I finally found it
and I ended up to love a baby, called Rita
She was 18 years old and I was 45
Rita you’re still starting and I’m close to the end

Rita, little Rita, you’re not afraid of anyone
Rita, little Rita, you don’t remember anything
Rita, little Rita, where do you sleep tonight?

You had told me so many times that you didn’t love me
I’m sorry, I didn’t understand you didn’t mean it
that’s why I salute you and and walk away speechless
with my head up high and my soul down to my feet

Rita, little Rita, you’re not afraid of anyone
Rita, little Rita, you don’t remember anything
Rita, little Rita, where do you sleep tonight?

Ti voglio, si, ti voglio…

We came about it from here, we came about it from there
come again the same things, the same things from scratch
We came about it from here, we came about it from there
I am again at nothing, you are at “in general”, “in general”

Nights with no name, nights with no purpose
losers from the start, losers, both of us
silly loves, silly kisses
words, words, words, fake words.

What can I tell you now, what could you tell me back
this manner in which we both played with unevenly weighted dice
We came about it from here, we came about it from there
I am again at nothing, you are at “in general”, “in general”

Nights with no name, nights with no purpose
losers from the start, losers, both of us
silly loves, silly kisses
words, words, words, fake words.

Νύχτες δίχως όνομα νύχτες χωρίς σκοπό
χαμένοι από χέρι χαμένοι και οι δυο
ανόητες αγάπες ανόητα φιλιά
λόγια λόγια λόγια λόγια ψεύτικα

I will go out like a herald
into the world some morning
and I will shout:
Vizier’s daughter, don’t!
Don’t ever betray the secret,
ach, our love was a two-edged knife.

And if I lower my eyes when she passes,
it is because I am ashamed before her.
Because I am from another neighborhood.

(translation: Eva Johanos
*vizier- a Turkish official
**saz- a stringed middle-eastern instrument popular in Turkish music)

He sits in the evenings until very late
smoking some strong cigarettes alone;
he doesn’t understand the new music;
he remembers Van Morrison and feels melancholy.

From early on he loved the verses of Seferis,
but now he doesn’t know anymore, but now he doesn’t know anymore.
He got bored escaping into the beautiful songs,
he got bored traveling into the days that are to come, into the days.

Somehow he makes do, patching things together.
He voted left three or four times
even if it seemed to him a joke, all of that.

In the sorrow of the festivals he will wander again;
he trembles at the thought of suddenly meeting her again.
A mistaken meeting at the wrong cafes,
and for a whole life, two inches outside of living.

Even if we did not become the people we wanted to become,
even if we did not remain the people we were,
We are still here, we are still here,
blindly searching for new ways.

Ach! It is so difficult to disappear for a love, to burn out
but it is two times more difficult to live for her, to live.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

I wander around in the house alone,
my folks aren’t here.
Around all the things I have known since I was a kid.
I open the drawer: Some costume jewelry of my mom’s
and my dad’s old fingernail cutter are there.

I go into the living room. Everything has been stopped in other times.
Time counts backwards, on top of some glass things
that break one by one.

It is very hard to bury your wooden swords,
and suddenly to grow up with a thousand and two whys
in your heart, in your heart.
Traveling in grey seas to the few bright
breaks of refreshment,
I heard the song until the end and Death laughed
with sobs.

I wander around in the house alone,
my folks aren’t here.
I open the closet and inside, in the mirror
I see a child who laughs at me and tells me:
“-Me they have put me here for a punishment.
But, every time that you want, come here,
to come in and out of the mirror.
Me they don’t see,
and when I say Orange three times, come out.”

I wander around the house alone.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Γυρίζω μες στο σπίτι μόνος μου.

I sit alone around here
Not that I am expecting anything
I pretend to look out the windows
So as to not draw attention to myself

And they keep going through my mind, these words
That I saw written on a wall once
And they keep going through my mind,
The strange birds of San Francisco
The rainy chords of Neil Young
The long streetlights of Don McLean
Pink Floyd’s dreams

Bye Bye Miss American Pie…………………………**

And the slogans that were scattered by the wind
And time swallowed and took away

No Passaran… No Passaran…

Inside the invisible lines of the satellites they will unite
They will unite, the voices and the slogans
Of Genova, of Prague*** the voices

No Passaran… No Passaran…

(translation: Eva Johanos
*No Pasaran: a common slogan seen and heard in the language of Central and South American protest for social justice and political freedom: “It shall not pass.”
**Bye Bye Miss American Pie: famous song by Don McLean
***Genova, Prague: referencing famous international agreements)

Aï, dark light of love – shivering blood of love
under your spell I forgot the murderous times
I gave birth to rosy babies in a future [filled] with stars
Aï, dark light of love

Aï, the knife cut of love – into the firm flesh of youth
a wound from which well sweet scents of kisses, and music
covering the nakedness of the devastated world
Aï, the knife cut of love…

Aï, the knife cut of love…
Aï, the knife cut of love!

You never counted the suns
that asked for you all these years
where are you woman
with the blue eyelashes

She hid you in her dress
the sickly girl
five winters buried you
in muddy snow

A big bat feeds
on your youth
that’s why it’s getting dark early
before you have had enough
the noon burns
in the high rooms
your blonde wave
bathes the streets

You die with the poets
every sunset
your hands smell
from their hair
the bell tolls
in which you believe no more
in a someone else’s yard you chat
with the moon

Myloz brought you
this year the Spring
Who else could care for your hunger
the neighbourhood was disturbed
by his ivory car
become beautiful, become beautiful
he will show you to the gardens

You have a smile
made of pearls
Sicelian fishermen
made it for you to wear
look for it and find it
before the night locks you
in a basement deeper
than this.

I don’t want to tell you big words
My voice freezes inside me
My little man inside a glass bowl
Who will yell now and what will he say

I have no big words to tell you
They have all been said a long time ago
But nothing has changed around here
If it had we would both know it

Man my small little man
In the same joke am I as well
In the booth of my silence

From the next cell over
I will tell you only one thing
And let the river take it

Man my small little man
Don’t wait around here any more
No one will come to save us

I will tell you only one thing
What you don’t take by yourself
No one will come to give you

I have no wonderful big things to tell you
They have all been said a thousand times
The world doesn’t change with conversations
It never changed with prayers

Man my small little man
In the same joke am I as well
In the booth of my silence

From the next cell over
I will tell you only one thing
And let the river take it

Man my small little man
Don’t wait around here any more
No one will come to save us

I will tell you only one thing
What you don’t take by yourself
No one will come to give you

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Remember well
If you have been lost in roads which burn
Then shout
And If I’m not there not to call me Harry

It’s not the need
It’s not the loneliness which will bring me there
I have borne many
You don’t know me well, no one knows me

Don’t return, don’t ask anything
For a night, don’t waste me
Don’t return, don’t ask anything
For a night, don’t waste me

I enter in the shadow
Light is blinding me, words make me sick
I got bored
I don’t want to explain, you have to choose

But I’m telling you again
If you have been lost in roads which burn
Then shout
And If I’m not there not to call me Harry

Don’t return, don’t ask anything
For a night, don’t waste me
Don’t return, don’t ask anything
For a night, don’t waste me

There are some spellbound crossroads
where we meet each other and then we get lost.
How many times didn’t I cry for you
that we lived together so many things
and yet, now we don’t know each other,
we don’t know each other…

Become night, night, become night and cover me…
Become night, night, become night and console me…

My pearly, moonlit girl
you didn’t know, I didn’t know and we got into trouble.
What belongs to us, we cut it into pieces.
The love we had sworn to each other wasn’t enough,
we got lost…

Become night, night, become night and cover me…
Become night, night, become night and console me…

New friends and companions we tried
That everything will be more difficult I have to accept
But of everything, what annoys me most
is that I’m getting used to your absence,
I’m getting used to it…

Become night, night, become night and cover me…
Become night, night, become night and console me…

Who my life, who chases her
to isolate her in the night?
They howl and whistle, trucks
like a fish they have caught me in the nets

For someone in the world it is late
who my life, who chases her?

Who my life, who is standing watch
in the narrow streets and alleys of the world
who is taking aim?
where did he go, the one who knows how to speak
who knows even better how to believe?

(translation: Eva Johanos)

The way to kill. . .
the way to kill
a human being
or a nation
is to kill his dreams. . .

His dreams.
To kill his dreams.
The way to kill. . .

Crooks of the world
there is a mark that you cannot conquer.
You cannot conquer.
That which is inside us.
That which is inside us.

(translation: Eva Johanos)