Oh Night!

Oh Night!
Are you with us?
My love says you are come;
She lit a candle to prove it.
I can feel it;
I can smell it.
But I cannot see you, Oh Night!
It’s so dark; I cannot see you.
Will I ever?

Oh Night!
Are you with us?
My love says you are upon me;
She set me on fire to prove it.
I can feel it;
I can smell it.
Oh Night!
You are upon me, so ravishing, so ravenous!
I can see you now.

Fallen Angel

You gambled pursuing a dream and lost.
You hurt me by breaking your vows,
And now I must punish myself by punishing you.
I will cast you out of this domain,
To the netherworld of dreams
From where you shall rule my nights:
A fallen angel,

But an angel to me all the more.

Translator in Low Spirits

Dear Adriana – old lady from the days of yore –
In rain or shine you and I and many more
Live to toil in pain over many a work and chore:
You peddling flowers from door to door,
And I bound the meaning of words spoken and writ to explore.

Some day, dear Adriana – be it far or near it matters not –,
The ferryman shall carry us over to the other shore
To the land where pain is pain no more
But a garden long and wide as far as the blind eye can trot,
Where words are flowers that never rot.

published by ThanalOnline

ISRAHEL

Israhel! The fire which wrought
Your mighty and cruel hand,
You have rekindled to your peril
In the grove of the Cedars.

The Book of Judas

Three days before the Passover
My Master sent for me to say:
“Judas, I bid thee search the market for
A Book unwrit and clothed in red.”

“Where in the market, Master, and
What inscription this Unscripture bears?
And pray tell me to what end
Thy bid compares.” ... I asked.

The Master laughed and raised his hands
To touch mine throbbing neck in loving care,
And to ears propensed to obedience
Whispered thus – seeing not, but ever aware
Of eleven spiteful looks of burning glare.

“Beloved Judas, on such guileless lips
As yours, little angels test their airy wings
Before they descend on punic scripts
that hold people's minds in eclipse.

“The Book is in the care of Uriel,
A vendor blind and ear lobeless.
Ask him if he the name of the Lord ever sung,
And he to thee his outer garment shall impart,
The left pocket of which is committed to conceal
The Book; and the message Uriel shall speak.”

Through the dimmed Jerusalem market stalls,
Deaf to the din and clatter and calls,
I searched for Uriel whose nipped ears never tire
In the service of my Master’s desire.

“Who’s Uriel?” I asked a boy in rags and in fingers fast.
The boy raised his grubby digit and pointed
To the stall of the market’s biblioclast,
And there stood the man whose visage I searched.

“Hast thou the name of the Lord ever sung?”
I asked Uriel in manner rather urgent.
He rolled his cloudy eyes to the sky strung
With pins of shimmering light and
Handed me his garment in acknowledgement.

Then, he spoke thus:

“Thirty pieces of silver, Judas,
Thirty Shekels of Tyre,
Are yours to receive
For a kiss to surrender thine Sire.”
-----------------------------------
George Trialonis (c) 2006
Published by ken*again Fall 2006

Must I?

To create; that is our banner.
To create, for we shall die.
How sad this knowledge is.
Hope is hidden in a lie.

Human Law

A little flower is sick:
The bees are kept away
By an overly protective hand,
But neither the sun, nor earth
Can sustain alone
A life so simple and so short.

Reinventing the Wheel

The Pyramids are standing upside down.
There are millions of possibilities in there,
When I say “I am neither here nor there.”
Requests for proof will let you down.

Degeneration

Pity the nation and its people who are in need of heroes or miracles.

Modern Greeks and Meaning

Making sense of most Greek texts that I receive for translation into English is more like a Herculean labour for me. "What the hell does he/she mean by that?!" is the mental tag that I am forced to place at the end of a considerable number of sentences in the source language. Why are modern Greeks so vague in what they write (and say)? Because they lack mental or intellectual discipline -- the result of partisan politics not only in education, but also in most aspects of life in Greece. These politics have created a mindset that finds expression in contempt of culture and merit.

Poetry

Poetry? Fire burning and blooming in the recesses of my heart.