Ash
and Ash Again
The
world is falling, falling
with
everything winged and fragrant,
a
drop of oil on my passion.
I
owe my infamy to fire.
Like
to all that’s fateful
It
mobilises hosts of dreams
Till
it scorches utopia like grass.
Sometimes
this too is revived
a
gazelle by sweat’s horizon,
to
once again stir the dry air
amidst
the lentisk.
I
believe in all that burns in vain.
Transient
and speechless
I
see mammals blazing
In
the festivity of milk.
I’m
precious,
I
guarantee nothing but ash.
(Translated by David
Connolly)
(From
“Sleepless Woman of the Skies”, 1995)
Decoration
for a Dinner
But
what is hunger?
The
royal hounds black and white
come
bounding
through
pits of dust
at
the immobilized victim
bitten
suddenly with the shiver of terror.
The
blood is lost in spice and aroma,
in
the brilliant illuminations of the dining-room,
in
the porcelain behaviour,
the
knife twelve inched from the fork.
An
invisible taste offered on visible lace,
With
flowers, wine and fowl.
Matter
consumed by matter
Until
the skeleton is reached.
The
rapacious awaits and defines our mortal lives.
(Translated by Thom Nairn-
D.Zervanou)
(From
“The Royal Town of the Balcony”, 1998)
Housewife
Time
for a rest,
with
arms crossed, amid the crops.
I
had measured the flour correctly
but
I found myself a little short-weight in sugar.
It
couldn’t be otherwise.
This
is my life, the corridor which
links
the bedrooms to the sitting-room.
What
else?
I
dare not say.
Something
is surreptitiously sucking me in,
the
walls, like white Patriarchs, bless
my
work.
When
I bend down
they
do not see
how,
as I squeeze the floor-cloth,
my
tears run down towards their roots.
(Translated by David Connolly &
Christopher Robinson)
(From
“Ewe-Lamb of the Vapours”, 1980)
Author’s
Bionote:
*Athina
Papadaki was born in Athens in 1945. She studied political science and
worked as a journalist; she was the producer of the radio program “Our Fairy
Tales,” in which children were the creators of the stories. She is a member of
the Society of Authors and the ESΗEA. Her travels to many countries around the
world (Asia, Europe, America, Africa) provided her with valuable experiences
that shaped her as a person and an artist. She has participated in major poetry
festivals around the world (Cuba, Colombia, France, England, Turkey, Denmark).
She has published fifteen poetry collections and two anthologies of her work.
Her fifteenth collection, titled “Shadow of the Soul”, was published in 2023 by
Kastaniotis Editions. In addition, she has published two collections of poetic
narratives of particular thematic interest, as well as seven children’s books.
She edited also the volume:“Sophia Mavroeidi-Papadaki: Robust and Lyrical”,
Athens, Hermes, 1998. Her poetry collections and poems have been translated
into English, French, Romanian, Turkish, Albanian, Spanish, Italian, Polish,
and Hindi. Her book “With a Lantern and Wolves” was awarded by the Academy of
Athens in 2010, and she was recently honored “as a poet and as a person who has
made a significant contribution to literature and culture” by the Panhellenic
Writers’ Union.
