Yannis Yfantis [Greece]

 

Always Here
 
There is no problem. I am here. I am always here. 
 
I wrote the Song of the Harpist in 2000 BC in Egypt. 
I wrote The Odyssey in 800 BC in Ionia. 
I wrote the Tao Te Ching in 600 BC in China. 
I wrote the Mathnavi i Manavi in the 11th century at Ikonion.
I wrote, exiled in Ravenna, the Comedy which Boccaccio called Divine. 
I wrote the Woman of Zakynthos, 
The Four Quartets 
The Kihli 
and Manthraspenta. 
 
There is no problem. I am here. I am always here.
 
 
 
Thus Spoke The Muse 
 
Poets are nothing but waves 
of the ocean whose name is Spirit. 
 
 
 
I Come From
 
I do not know if it was Ritsos or Homer
 who convinced me to enter the Trojan Horse 
holding only a sword and a mirror. 
 
I come from the desert, 
where the sand is the crush of every form. 
 
I come from the Ursae, 
carrying a sack full of stars, 
holding in my hand a moon-mask. 
 
I come from the hut,
plaited with branches of lightning. 
 
I come from a house made of mirrors. 
 
I come from the mountain gorge, 
that is curved like a sword 
half filled with snow, 
half filled with flowers. 
 
I come from the banks of the mountain river 
where waterfalls – ascetics 
stand up inside jars 
made of stone. 
 
I come from the North; 
wearing two half-moons as skates, 
sliding continuously on the snow 
for three thousand years. 
 
I come from the Tatarian hordes; 
I am the soldier who slaughtered Attar and 
I am also Attar himself 
and the knife which slaughtered him. 
 
I come from the black galaxy of ants, 
which sweeps away a dead butterfly 
like an angel’s sailing-boat 
like Icarus after his fall. 
 
I come from Greece, 
which with her 
Peloponnesean hand 
reached out and scattered 
the islands around herself 
so that she doesn’t lie alone in the sea. 
 
I come from the hole of a rotten branch 
where I was officiating, wearing the dress of a wild bee or the vestments of a butterfly. 
 
I come from the dusk of Thessaly, 
where I was pasturing a flock of fires 
for a thousand years. 
 
I come from the book of Anaximandros;
I am always there, wherever, I go. 
 
They asked me where I come from. 
What could I tell them? 
They wouldn’t understand me 
and then they would lead me 
tied up to the psychiatrist. 
 
“I’ come”, I said plainly, “from Agrinio*”, 
hiding inside that word, 
as much as I could,
the “agrios”, the “ni”, and 
above all 
the “o”, 
which is a well, a trap, my home, a mirror and 
a labyrinth 
(the most complicated labyrinth, 
even though it looks so simple; just a little ring).
 
*Agrinio: A city of Aetolia in Greece, whose name derives from the word “Agrios” (i.e “Wild”), the name of a mythical hero from ancient Aetolia.   

(Τranslated by Vasso Dermani and Urania)

  

 
  Author’s Bionote:     
    
* Yannis Yfantis was born in Raina, a valley of Aetolia, in Greece. After living for 32 years in Thessaloniki, he has returned lately to his place of origin. He now shares his time between Raina of Agrinion and Pelasgikon of Lefkas island. He studied Law at Aristotle University, where he also attended classes on Philosophy, Archaeology and Astronomy. He broadcasted for two years in the National Radio of Thessaloniki the programmes entitled: "Greek and international poetry" and "In reality, the issue is one".  He was also invited to give lectures about his poetic and visual work as well as about Rimbaud, Seferis, Ritsos, Elytis, Kavafis, Kazantzakis and Kavadias in many High Schools and Universities in Greece. Many of his poems have been translated in English, French, Bulgarian, Italian, Russian, Spanish, and recently in Arabic, Chinese, German, Finnish, Hebrew, Serbian, Slav-Macedonian and Persian. Some of his poems have been set to music by the English musician Ivan Moody. He set some of his poems to music himself, as well as one poem of Solon, and poems of Sufi, Indian and Zen poets. Books of his have been published in Italian, French, Bulgarian and Spanish. He has been invited to present his work in several festivals abroad. Although he believes that books are made by themselves, he received, unexpectedly, for them, the Cavafis Prize for 1995 in Alexandria of Egypt. In November 2003 he has been invited by the Bavarian Ministry of Culture, for three months, to Feldafing, near the lake Starnbergersee. His website: www.yfantis.gr