Posts category Μεταφράσεις

Μεταφράσεις


Poetry  Μεταφράσεις 

Nymphalidae

January 9, 2017  by Natalie Katsou 

 

À cette tombée de nuit, je me sens presque chez moi dans ce coin de Japon
Η νύχτα καταρρέει σ’ αυτήν τη λευκή γωνία με το σκισμένο παραβάν ρουφώντας τα δόντια τα δάχτυλα και τους βολβούς των περαστικών. Μπουκάλι οινόπνευμα κυλάει στην καμπύλη του δρόμου. Πέφτει το μπουκάλι στο ποτάμι με ένα χαρτί τσαλακωμένο κόντρα στο ρεύμα. Σώσε με. Βρες με και τράβηξέ με από τα μαλλιά. Η συνύπαρξη είναι αίνιγμα πολλαπλών μονάδων. Το σύνολο αποκαλύπτεται εφαρμόζοντας την κάθε μοναξιά στο περίγραμμα της άλλης. Συνηθίζεται. Η μοναχική ματιά στα πράγματα – με την ενοχή ζώου που τρώει ζαχαρωτά προορισμένα για δόλωμα. Κάποια στιγμή λησμονείται ίσως. Μόλις κρυσταλλώσει η ζάχαρη στον ουρανίσκο. Η σφαγή εκτυλίσσεται μεταξύ τυφλότητας και απόλυτης διαύγειας. Κοινός παρονομαστής το λευκό, η λευκή γωνία του κόσμου που μοιάζει με θάνατο.
O Ama-Terace-Omi-Kami, lavez-moi bien blanchement de ce petit mariage, dans les eaux de la rivière de Kamo…

translation by Yannis Goumas

Chrysanthemum

    Cartes Postales

The night collapses in this white corner with the split screen swallowing the teeth fingers and eyeballs of passersby.  A bottle of alcohol is rolling along the road’s curve.  The bottle falls in the river with a creased piece of paper against the current.

Save me.  Find me and pull me out by the hair.

Coexistence is a multi-unit enigma.

The total is revealed by fitting each loneliness

to the other’s outline.

It’s customary.  A lonely look at things – with the guilt of an animal that’s eating sweetmeat intended for bait.  At a certain moment it may be forgotten.  Once the sugar crystallizes on the palate.  The slaughter takes place between blindness and utter clarity.  Common denominator is the white, the world’s white corner that resembles death.

Kedros Publ. 2015


Μεταφράσεις 

LILITH III

January 9, 2017  by Natalie Katsou 

from “Enchanter” Kastaniotis Publ. translated by Yannis Goumas

my name is Lilith
carved on copper
it blinds you from afar
before sundown
they say I kidnap women’s children;
shrieks in cradles
then silence and shadows
moving on the walls
that I laugh hysterically;
I start dribbling
my beard grows, my nails
the moment I smell childbirth
sterile Lilith, stony
yet I hide two sexes;
all throes of childbirth in me
a twin thirst, unquenched
only chimeras do I breast-feed
I never interfere with children;
I let them grow
grass of puberty; that’s where they lie
rubbing themselves with fig leaves
drinking mulberry milk
and wake up
only they don’t recognize
innocence once they return
they blame me
as if in the past they hadn’t unstuck
Eve from my flesh
lily-white, ethereal
hounded like me
IV
my name is Lilith
I travel in people’s dreams;
the moon is waxing tonight
all rivers flow into its crater
it has the colour of water
at times this crystal sphere
is not visible, or so they say;
lies
I cover the moon with my skin
it mirrors my nudism
I swim in the dark
I predict the oncoming day
– remember those screams and tears
when a full moon rises
words of a woman asleep
Lilith is my name;
for sages I am air;
for dreamers, their lover

NATALIE KATSOU IS FROM ATHENS, Greece and lives in London. She has published two books in Athens — Magodos, which means Enchanter (Kastaniotis Publ. 2008, nominated for the Diavazo Literarture Prize 2009), and Cochlea (Kedros PUbl. 2012). She has published poems in such literary magazines as Poihtiki (ArsPoetica), dekata and e-zines: e-poema.gr, poeticanet.gr and mediterannean.nu. Many of her poems have been translated into English by the poet Yannis Goumas.

YANNIS GOUMAS IS A POET, TRANSLATOR, novelist, actor, composer and singer. Born in Athens , he grow up and was educated in England, where he lived for much of his life. Author of eight books of poems in English, five in Greek (in translation) and one trilingual (English, Turkish, Greek), his poems have been translated into Turkish, Arabic, Serbe-Croatian, Italian, Esthonian and Hungarian.

http://poetrybay.com/fall12/NatalieKatsou.html


Μεταφράσεις 

Cobalt Blue

January 8, 2017  by Natalie Katsou 

• the chasm / distance between
the setting sun
and snowy meanings
I name “mouth about to speak”

• a long corridor
leads to the start of wandering

• a child is gathering acorn
strewn on the ground, I say
“the strangers have forgotten me tonight”

• on Sundays there is no one
except me
(then I remember that I resemble them)

• “yellow shirt pegged
on a clothesline”
a fat woman hung me to dry

• time slows down
the fewer colours you see
(on white stops black)

• the wind is blowing
drops form in the air
“dangling, frozen drops”

• smaller the frame
more cobalt blue

• I continue that the earth
shall not dry on my heels

• not a word beyond the painter’s paintbrush
neither “I know” nor “I want”
anything may be happening outside

• winter may eventually come to an end

• I doubt it

• houses, streets, cars
no, only yellow “trees”

• the guards are depressed
the guards are asleep

• I am not in a hurry;
if I leave the hall of paintings
I’ll still be a visitor

• do figures on paintings
observe us?

• I would like to be “woman lying down”
or “nude”, pencil on paper;
I would be something – specific

• the exhibition will last until the spring;
wandering till its end

Natalie Katsou
© translation by Yannis Goumas
Clippings

I

instantaneous white
again
between one night and another
– as a crack in the French window
will allow
and the opening of eyesight

II

unveil the only eyelid
my clam
that the after-sleep-day
shall melt
inside you

never mind if some lecithin
of the sort you suckled
spills scalding on the floor
there’ll always be someone
to chisel it
before it petrifies

III

(every silence explodes one day)

IV

There is no sky
and what we call stars
are nothing but teeth;
they sprang out of the mouths
of whomever dared
speak;
they were embedded in time

Natalie Katsou
© translation by Yannis Goumas