Marios Tokas / Μάριος Τόκας

Seas, in your eyes seas
and you were taking me on trips, like a boat, and you were saying
I will love you by the summers
with storms and with the rain,
with my two arms as your pillow
you will be dreaming whatever you want

Tonight I will drink a glass of death to get drunk
Tell me how can I live alone
in the summers
Tonight I will drink a glass of death to get drunk
I will go on an abandoned route,
I will go to look for you.

Seas, in your eyes seas,
and you were taking me on trips, like a boat, and you were saying
I will love you – don’t you get sad – **
like a sin and like a feast.
Learn to read in my eyes
whatever I have not told you in words

(** get sad is the meaning of the expression. Nevertheless, the exact words of the song are “get cloudy”)

Θάλασσες, μέσα στα μάτια σου θάλασσες
και με ταξίδευες, σαν το καράβι κι έλεγες:
Θα σ’ αγαπώ, μη μου συννεφιάζεις
σαν αμαρτία και σαν γιορτή
Μάθε στα μάτια μου να διαβάζεις
ότι με λόγια δε σου ‘χω πει

On Sundays when I can’t bear
dying alone
a love song
burns my bitter mouth.

Write me something,
write me something
and don’t write me words about love.
I haven’t slept a wink in three nights
write me something.

On Sundays when you don’t ask
alone, how I can withstand it
a song of despair
burns my lips like fire

Write me something,
write me something
and don’t write me words about love.
I haven’t slept a wink in three nights
write me something.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Child with a photograph in his hand
With a photograph deep within his eyes
And holding it upside down he looked at me

The people around him many and he
Had in his eyes a little photograph,
On his shoulders big – and in contrast
In his eyes big, on his shoulders smaller,
In his hand smaller still

He was in the midst of people with signs
And he was holding it upside down; it bothered me

Child with a photograph in his hand
With a photograph deep within his eyes
And holding it upside down he looked at me

Near him I go passing framed pictures
Of beloved eyebrows or voices
Which had been frozen and no longer moved, not a single one
It looked like his father, the photograph
I turned it right side up for him and again I saw
The missing person with his head down

Like the king, the jack and the queen*
Seen upside down whilst finding themselves upright
So this man seen upright
Returns upside down and regards you

Child with a photograph in his hand
With a photograph deep within his eyes
And holding it upside down he looked at me

(Translation: Eva Johanos
*referring to playing cards;
Kyriakos Haralambidis was inspired in the writing of this poem by witnessing the specific child pictured here, in a march in commemoration of the lives lost and the missing from the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974; the child’s father, pictured in his parents’ wedding portrait, was among the missing.)

Παιδί με μια φωτογραφία στο χέρι
με μια φωτογραφία στα μάτια του βαθιά
και κρατημένη ανάποδα με κοίταζε.

Stars fell off of cliffs
and broke into pieces
when I first faced
your two eyes brimming with tears

Heaven threw fire
and got drunk with me
when deep in your body
I scattered my soul

(refrain)
Tonight when your eyes regard me as a stranger
what seas are burning and which hearts sighing
Tonight when your words strike me without mercy
into the greatest loneliness they are slowly taking me

Loves which had forgotten each other
met once again
the night that I traveled
in your embrace

Tears became rain
and velvet became a thorn
as many times as you were wounded
because of my mistakes

(translation: Eva Johanos)

You put some tough puzzles on on this senseless world
and lie awake with an archangelic zeibekiko
you laugh an ignorant mighty laughter
and then you’re asking for silence that cannot stand a word

Lonesome and rare
you wander through the Balkans
to reap the winds
just like a virgin Mary in an opium-den
you’re loooking for the stain of the world
to wipe it clean

At nights you dream of dark-haired Gods
and you fall in love with every sun you ramble
8 beaufort and the dragons are out on the waves
you pick up a quill and write a poem

Lonesome and rare
you wander through the Balkans
to reap the winds
just like a virgin Mary in an opium-den
you’re loooking for the stain of the world
to wipe it clean
Lonesome and rare
you wander through the Balkans
to reap the winds
just like a virgin Mary in an opium-den
you’re loooking for the stain of the world
to wipe it clean

[*Zeibekiko is a form of Greek dance, characterised by a feeling of heartache and woe, with turnarounds and slow 'heavy ' steps…]

After I was conceived by an imperial fate
I was born by an ancient Macedonian womb
with an empty quiver I’m fighting the winter
from the castle in the heart of Platamon**

Since I was brought here by a Phanariot*** path
i’m held by an alley of Thessalonika
come one night to take the promise
before it’s swept away by the Northern wind (Vardaris****)

I search for you
I search for you in Thessaloniki at daybreak
It’s your sight that’s missing from the colours of dawn
I search for you
I search for you with a violin and a moon
the dream, you and the bow are missing

Since I’m drunk with a wine from the Holy Mountain*****
and I’m shaken with the woes of the City [Constantinople]
find the knife that cuts us in half
and come here at the fortress of laments

Since the Gods in Olympus have made up their minds
they gave the keys to the cold and killed themselves
the day wakes up and sleeps alone now
with a motorcycle with computers and flute

I search for you….

[translators' notes:
*Thessaloniki is also pronounced as 'Salonika' ,'Thessalonika'
**A seaside town in Macedonia with a well preserved castle
***Phanari is the Greek district of Constantinople where the Ecumenical Patriarchate is located
****A northern wind and also another name for the Axios river
*****A monastic state in Chalkidiki, an autonomous part of Greece; "I'm shaken with the woes of the City" : the singer is in sorrow (about a woman) and by Polis (the City) we mean Constantinople (referring to the Greek history of modern day Istanbul and the tragic events of the Turkish occupation)

Σ' αναζητώ
Σ' αναζητώ στη Σαλονίκη ξημερώματα
λείπει το βλέμμα σου απ' της αυγής τα χρώματα
σ' αναζητώ
σ' αναζητώ μ' ένα βιολί κι ένα φεγγάρι
λείπει το όνειρο εσύ και το δοξάρι

They talk about you without a reason, and not unjustly
how you sleep in the narrow streets of the old oil dealerships
you became famous and that's why you don't hide yourself
you live in the dark, cleanly, but you don't take oaths

You shine in the red satin in which they wrap you
white and heavy smokes swallow you up
on the cobblestones you stay up late, wet, paved with stones
in the door of the paid-for paradise's courtyard

So much I will give, how much do you want
in the oil dealerships they sell what you want
each bedroom a cell
with the heavy breathing of young men

Thousands of lost lonelinesses mix in you
ships leave, but before they leave they whistle for you
how many kids came to find their manhood
and timidly laid down on you their allowance

So much I will give, how much do you want
in the oil dealerships they sell what you want
each bedroom a cell
with the heavy breathing of young men
So much I will give, how much do you want
in the oil dealerships they sell what you want
each bedroom a cell
with the heavy breathing of young men

(translation: Eva Johanos
*Ta ladadika ["the oil dealerships"]- an area of Thessaloniki named for the oil dealerships which were located there at one time; it is now a popular area for nightlife)

Τόσα δίνω πόσα θες
στα λαδάδικα πουλάν αυτό που θες
κάθε κάμαρα κελί
με βαριά παλικαρίσια αναπνοή
Τόσα δίνω πόσα θες
στα λαδάδικα πουλάν αυτό που θες
κάθε κάμαρα κελί
με βαριά παλικαρίσια αναπνοή

Τα σιείλη μου δακκάννω τα
μ’ αναπαμόν εν βρίσκουν
γιατί ομπρός σου χάννω τα
τζιαι διψασμένα τζι άποτα
δίχα φιλίν μεινίσκουν.