Miltiades Paschalidis / Μιλτιάδης Πασχαλίδης

I return home alone
one more night
a goodnight from you I am seeking, impoverished
I am exhausted by the lies,
the dice and the smoke
I ask all the strays
if they saw you…
where are you now?

The essence of love
I measure in your absence
and I keep falling apart
my sweet green eyes

All that i knew
I forgot beside you
and your gaze is my only charm
with one smile
you scatter all the clouds
illuminating me with a true light
a true light…

The essence of love
I measure in your absence
and I keep falling apart
my sweet green eyes

Since I was a child, I remember, I’ve been trying
to steal the candy from the vase
to fight with wooden swords
and keep running away a whole life

But what links us to the past
is the bad habits
I feel it clearly now,
it’s late for truths

My whole life is full of complicity and how I like
the biggest lies in the most innocent looks.
My whole life is full of complicity and how I like
afternoons with coffee and a cigarette.

Since I was a child, I remember I’ve been trying
to get away with the biggest mistakes
I was taught to be afraid of whatever I love
and always to leave before I offer

But what links us to the past
is the bad habits
I feel it clearly now,
it’s late for truths

My whole life is full of complicity and how I like
the biggest lies in the most innocent looks.
My whole life is full of complicity and how I like
afternoons with coffee and a cigarette.

In the cities a number
At dawn on Wednesday
You hit the road by yourself
Erased from the map

Some old passings
In underground passages
Adolescent ruses
The ghosts of friends
You wish to get past

A sparrow in the rain
A knight of desolation
To sing every morning
The blues of wild youth

A jacket that is out of style
And a tired step
You search for hidden “I love you”s
On a wall from which the paint has disappeared

A stroll in the neighborhoods
Where you played as a child
Hunting with the shadows
Of all those who disappeared into the yesterday
Seeking some Ithaca*

A sparrow in the rain
A knight of desolation
To sing every morning
The blues of wild youth

A sparrow in the rain
An adventurer on the wire
To sing every morning
The blues of wild youth

In the cities a number
At dawn on Wednesday
You hit the road by yourself
Erased from the map

(translation: Eva Johanos
*Ithaca- the island home of Odysseus; reference to Homer’s Odyssey, the story of a long, perilous and adventurous return home after many years of absence)

It’s been a while since I left and I don’t look back
and you say you never understood why
and if now I find it difficult to open my mouth
I sat and wrote you a few words on the paper

Eyes which are not seen forget each other quickly
you told me one evening with with a cloudy complaint
love affairs don’t die, my heart, but sleep
in order to be able to laugh, in hiding, at time

I remember when you told me that love is enough
with love we would fill the empty Sundays
our vows faded, and the illusion became apparent
and your words remained and the bitter coffee

Eyes which are not seen forget each other quickly
you told me one evening with with a cloudy complaint
love affairs don’t die, my heart, but sleep
in order to be able to laugh, in hiding, at time

(translation: Eva Johanos)

I once met a lake
my eyes, my eyes*
I once met a lake
who wanted to be a sea

And at every dawn
she’s eaten up with sorrow
And at every dawn
she’s eaten up with sorrow

I once came across a stone
my eyes, ah, my eyes
I once came across a stone
who wanted to become a rock

And at every dawn
she’s eaten up with sorrow
And at every dawn
she’s eaten up with sorrow

I once loved a girl
my eyes, my black eyes
who asked every boy
when she will become a woman

And at every dawn
she’s eaten up with sorrow
And at every dawn
she’s eaten up with sorrow

It’s been ten years
my eyes, ah, my eyes
the girl has become a woman
but I remained a child

And at every dawn
I’m eaten up with sorrow
and at every dawn
I’m eaten up with sorrow

(*my eyes: expression of love)

The blossom of the wild poppy
Don’t breathe in its fragrance
Because to me my darling
One day you will return

You will seek from me the fire
And the caress of the madman
You always looked for the kisses
That leave a mark

My caresses I threw away
Into the well of forgetting
So they will not find them the embraces
That go out walking in the evening

With migrating birds
Don’t reach for love
Because they are fleeting
And soon you lose them

And they pillage you of speech
And you have no more breath
And you keep coming back to me in the morning
Looking for a caress from me

My caresses I threw away
Into the well of forgetting
So they will not find them the embraces
That go out walking in the evening

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Τα χάδια μου τα πέταξα
Στις λήθης το πηγάδι
Να μην τα βρουν οι αγκαλιές
που βγαίνουνε σεργιάνι

In a bridge made of stone
I will build my heart,
so that when you cross the river
you will hear the sighing
and my complaints.

The tree hides the bird
the wild forests the wild animal
and you, wild animal and bird
what you search for in life
you have passed by.

To a white shirt
I will sew my wings
so that when you thirst for sky
you wear it and I fly
into my dreams.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

For you, cheating girl
I agreed with heartbreak
never to separate

My nights I walked
I left my friends
But you set me back

In another embrace
Where you give your kisses
Precious little butterfly
You will burn your wings

For you, cheating girl
My years I forgot
And I convinced my heart

One word from you would be enough
And my life would be set aright
Just like my dreams

In another embrace
Where you give your kisses
Precious little butterfly
You will burn your wings

(translation: Eva Johanos)

You speak to me, and you are fresh air
In your hands, my hands dance
Either the weather is changing and becoming more gentle
Or your eyes are once again making a fool of me.

I overdo it with you and I keep myself alive
And in your caress I seek some help.
Either I became for you again an ocean
or your laughter hides the truth from me.

If it is a lie, let it live
and let me believe that you still love me
You were born from a deck of cards
and I never know with which card you are holding me.

From your body the cliff begins
and on your lips, your kiss is nicotine
Either I am confusing the darkness with the light
or your mouth is swallowing me again.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Many times I’ve spoken to you
my mouth full of colours
I told you, all I have learned
I have learned it bodily
Half soul, half body
and my hunger a wild beast
Half a life I wasted
for both of them to live

All the pieces you might put together
won’t be enough, not for a moment, for you to feel me
I have told you everything – Now kiss me – now

The water always loved me
but it was the sky who made my life
And once I measured what I am capable of
the earth was not big enough
I hunted beauty
but it was grief who stole me
My truths are you, crying,
and the beats of your heart.

All the pieces you might put together
won’t be enough, not for a moment, for you to feel me
I have told you everything – Now kiss me – now

My dreams are like wind-up toys.
And my mind a strange patent.
My memories start conversations with me.
Tonight I say I will play the ones I have won.

And so I gather up the road backwards.
I remember all the haunts of my life.
I fed wolves and they ate my hands,
in such a way I learned to caress.

Alone I left and alone I arrive.
And all the roads that brought me here
I have walked again in one day.
My only homeland is time.
My only homeland is time.

And afterwards came cheerful groups of friends…
They kept telling me that I owe nothing to anyone.
They poured alcohol for me so I could learn to laugh,
and I left them to look for new ones.

The sea collected me from the street.
It gave me salt to help me forget,
it taught me to love the wave,
and I brought a mast out on my shoulder.

Alone I left and alone I arrive.
And all the roads that brought me here
I have walked again in one day.
My only homeland is time.
My only homeland is time.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Someday we will leave this place
When we will all be tired
I will turn back a moment to see you
And you will look at me, happy.

Someday we will leave this place
And all your “I wants” you will shout
Your cry will not be mute
You will be able to cry freely.

Someday, but now we are here
Strangers in a changing world
I know a thousand ways to save myself
But none of them suit me.

Someday we will leave this place
And you will be beautiful on the road
You will laugh with whatever I tell you
Clouds we will take out on our shoulders.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

I’ll get the stars down from your ceiling
and leave your whole world beaten up
I know that in my words knives are being sharpened
I feel cold hands squeezing my life
and my courage cut off at the knee

But tonight I have to get it done
I have no strength – I have to get out of here
I wish it were a bit different – I don’t know
I wish it were – and I’d want you again
and tell you: “get up I’ll take you with me”

I don’t know who I’m fighting for my victory
I reach the door and weigh my life in the balance
I feel your eyes drawing me back
loving me twice over to make me come back
like anchors sunk into my body

I get out on the street and wipe off your blood
and all the things I’ve said to you, I can’t believe them
“don’t forget to get caught in your dreams”
“don’t be afraid you’ve got your life before you”
All the nonsense I said trying to get clear

I don’t know who I’m fighting for my victory…

This man walks crying,
nobody knows why.
Sometimes they think it is lost loves
like those that torture us so
at the sea shore in the summer with the gramophones

The other people take care of their business,
endless papers, growing children,
women who get old with difficulty
he has two eyes like poppies,
like cut spring poppies
and two small springs of water in his eye sockets

He walks into the streets but never rests,
striding through little squares on the earth’s back
the machine of a boundless anguish
that turned out to have no meaning

Others heard him talking to himself as he passed
about broken mirrors, years before,
about broken images in the mirrors
that could not be put together again by anyone.
Others heard him talking about sleep,
images of horror at the doorstep of sleep
unbearable faces of affection

We got used to him, he is well-set and calm,
he just walks crying over and over again,
like the salixes at the edge of the river that you see from the train
waking up in a bad way on some cloudy dawn.

We got used to him, he doesn’t represent anything
like all the things you have gotten used to
and I’m talking about him because I can’t find anything
that you didn’t get used to
I offer my respects

I have two butterflies in my hands
One to take care of my stars
and the other to sharpen my knives
I have two butterflies in my hands

When one is sleeping the other stays awake
and the one which stays awake tyrannizes me
In red moons, in red moons,
in red moons it takes me out walking.

I have two butterflies on my lips
One to embroider my kerchief
and the other to count who are my friends
I have two butterflies on my lips.

When one flies the other hides
When one takes care of me the other closes herself
in a color in which silence, in a color in which silence,
in a color in which silence surrenders

I have two butterflies on my back
a mark and a compass on my map
I have two butterflies on my back
The one I call fear, the one I call fear,
the one I call fear, the other, my love.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

In the middle of the sea I sail with longing for my bow
and I’ve got love for the stern and separation for the masts

Sea, don’t push me far away
Separation, you make my heart bleed

The peak of the mountain (Mt. Psiloritis of Crete) with longing I perceive
and with tears I leave Crete and bid it farewell

Sea, you send me far away into exile
Separation, you’ve burned my heart

Dark fate wrote it, that I would get farther away and be lost
and that I live far from my island (Crete) and from her that I love

Sea, don’t push me far away
Separation, you have burned my heart

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