Performance

[vitaly2 9]

Performance

by Manos Eleftheriou

(From Panta kati menei)

I'll treat you to a jasmine tea with bread

while you'll be resting in a soft armchair,

present you with a rare stamp of a Hermes head,

a Polydori's autograph, and would you care

for fingernails-made scribblings on the bare

soil - that on my body can be also read?

The shutters are closed and turned on the lights.

Performance I will give you of a sacrifice.

Wrapped in a bedsheet, my lonely soul's sight

is a reenaction of one betraying kiss's vice.

Two years of rain! Humidity is on the rise.

Gone mad the weather - it is such a fright.

It'll rain and snow, and the wind will rage

but we are well protected from the breeze.

As two unguarded islands we will age

and then deleted from the map of Greece.

Shall I incite you? Don't worry, please.

I know: you've got no rope or a scaffold stage.

[Alona 8,279]

Good to see you back

Thanks for the translation

[vitaly2 9]

Merry-go-round

You can't jump into the same river twice.

There was only one Buddha and one Christ.

Going backwards you meet only ghosts

moving their lips - but the songs are lost.

Dalai-Lamas are many with different names.

Blessed are children not tired of games,

playing find-and-seek as in good ole times,

jumping over strings of nursery rhymes.

Don't tear that string, it'll die by itself -

unused, unplayed, forgotten on the shelf.

It doesn't die, the memory's Time Machine,

turning round, round - a dull needle routine.

Even if Holidays at us turn their back

we'll be happy recycling the old songs' stack.

Music, an Angel falling, hitting on the head:

still in the last effort - cast at us your bread,

crumbs of your song, fleas of your dog,

a Firebird's feather, a Cinderella's clog...

Everyone is catching his own from the voice:

democracy of music, freedom of our choice.

You can swim in the same river twice -

if you can consume music as a pizza slice,

as in a restaurant ordering your songs.

But I don't know for what my heart longs.

How do I know what the future brings?

Presidents will go - are remembered Kings.

It's your imagination, singing in my head,

when for a stadium crowd you are making bread.

Blessed are good people with good appetite.

Merry-go-round is inviting for a ride.

Craving bread and starving - I don't go inside.

Music of the ocean doesn't repeat the tide.

Happy Holidays!