Thanassis Hatzopoulos [Greece]

 

The fish is poisoned in the air

The eyes that bear the enigma
Of bodies, the eyes writhe
In the mouth’s twitching
For speech is fire and the speaker
A street tumbler who
Burns from his guts to his lips
 
From the lips instantaneous ignition of mysterious
Whispers, a celebrated prayer like a caress
Rises and in the gaze bathes
The point with poison, the touch
Fading dissolves the haze
In the bodies’ speech, music
Buried by the hands
 
And the moment can in no way move
Nor the body writhe outside events
Just as the fish is poisoned
And leaps into the air  
 

Sphinx
 
Whoever has to solve the mystery
And to render the truth
The enigmatic smiles that blossom
With charms and shed leaves of falsehood
Is the one who will find the path
To have access to the sea
 
To her riddle he answers
With a suitable song
Whose music charms her like glass
A shroud of foam its power shatters
And enwraps her, its words
Break the spell and the gaze
 
At her feet, at her mysteries
And at her bowels that now blossom
With sea-anemones, that the shipwreck may sprout
Set sail as a fruitful garden
Man bends his knee
For from there is born and falls silent
The work of his life and of his fate
The honeyed torment  

 
Nemesis
 
Whatever it gives it takes back
From the green carnation to the ripe
Fig
 
Whatever it takes it gives back
From the rosy-cheeked child to the trusted
Friend
 
Whatever it sees it names whatever it names
It steals from men’s cradle
Where for life the works are
In men’s measure
 
And what appears downy on the cheek
Is time that on its beard grows
Rain and darkness equally
 
With the enigma of the soul
That bound to the sword
Touches the honey
  
(Translated from Modern Greek by David Connolly) 
  

Author’s Bionote: 

*Thanassis Hatzopoulos (Aliveri, Evia, Greece, 1961) is a poet and translator, he is also a child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. He has published seventeen books of poetry from 1986, an outline and an essay of a poetics, a book of essays, three tales for children, a book of short stories and two novels. His poetry collection Cell was awarded the Prix Max Jacob étranger 2013 in France and his work “Verbs for the rose” was awarded the National Translation Prize for 2003 in Spain, translated by Vicente Fernandez Gonzalez. In 2013, he was awarded the Poetry Prize by the Athens Academy for his entire work. He was deemed also with the National Short-Story Prize for his book “Historical Present” in 2021 and the Poetry Prize of “O Anagnostis” and the National Poetry Prize for his book “Flags under construction”. The French Republic conferred on him the title of Knight of Arts and Letters in 2014, and the French Department of the University of Athens awarded him an Honorary Doctorate in 2025.