Haris & Panos Katsimichas

I wander around in the house alone,
my folks aren’t here.
Around all the things I have known since I was a kid.
I open the drawer: Some costume jewelry of my mom’s
and my dad’s old fingernail cutter are there.

I go into the living room. Everything has been stopped in other times.
Time counts backwards, on top of some glass things
that break one by one.

It is very hard to bury your wooden swords,
and suddenly to grow up with a thousand and two whys
in your heart, in your heart.
Traveling in grey seas to the few bright
breaks of refreshment,
I heard the song until the end and Death laughed
with sobs.

I wander around in the house alone,
my folks aren’t here.
I open the closet and inside, in the mirror
I see a child who laughs at me and tells me:
“-Me they have put me here for a punishment.
But, every time that you want, come here,
to come in and out of the mirror.
Me they don’t see,
and when I say Orange three times, come out.”

I wander around the house alone.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Γυρίζω μες στο σπίτι μόνος μου.

We came about it from here, we came about it from there
come again the same things, the same things from scratch
We came about it from here, we came about it from there
I am again at nothing, you are at “in general”, “in general”

Nights with no name, nights with no purpose
losers from the start, losers, both of us
silly loves, silly kisses
words, words, words, fake words.

What can I tell you now, what could you tell me back
this manner in which we both played with unevenly weighted dice
We came about it from here, we came about it from there
I am again at nothing, you are at “in general”, “in general”

Nights with no name, nights with no purpose
losers from the start, losers, both of us
silly loves, silly kisses
words, words, words, fake words.

Νύχτες δίχως όνομα νύχτες χωρίς σκοπό
χαμένοι από χέρι χαμένοι και οι δυο
ανόητες αγάπες ανόητα φιλιά
λόγια λόγια λόγια λόγια ψεύτικα

On Sirius, there are children,
they have never let sorrow into their heart;
they have seen no wars and deaths,
and over their blue school suit
on Sunday, they wear their good clothes.

At night when they look at the sky
one star like a sea-blue feather
very strangely strikes their mind;
it looks to them like a far away little ship
and they go and ask their teacher about it

He tells them: dear children, that is the Earth,
the disease, the wound of the universe;
there, they sing songs, they write poems,
and, indefatigable hunters of their dreams,
they embroider their walls with messages.

On Sirius, the children wept
and, from that night on, they have let
one sorrow into their sweet little heart.

Στο Σείριο δακρύσαν τα παιδιά
και βάλαν από κείνη τη βραδιά
μιαν έγνοια στη μικρούλα τους καρδιά