Sotirios Pastakas, WRESTLING ROUNDS to Panayotis Linardakis (translated by Yiannis Goumas)

WRESTLING ROUNDS (translated by Yiannis Goumas)

To Panayotis Linardakis

Dirty bare footprints

on the floor tiles, on the grass.

Two cats are courting

in my garden tonight.

They approach, withdraw,

stop short, jump up,

scratch my arms.

I place my hands in the night.

Two cats lacerate my flesh.

I give them my flesh

to trample on,

to paint,

to embroider,

to make it a smooth painterly

surface.

I thrust my hands into the night.

I paint the walls

of the nouveaux riches for a living,

I colourwash

the gates at night

with money put by.

Head bowed, palette

laid aside, I don’t set up an easel,

don’t use paintbrushes,

two courting cats

portray me,

two wrestling bodies,

two souls that forgive each other,

two eyes, one looking

into the other,

for this too can happen,

my right eye looks

into my left one,

one cat goes at me

the other pirouettes

away,

my one hand chases

the other hand.

Painter with one cat

as bedfellow

and the other

on his belly, dirty

white footprints

on the canvas

which is my skin.

I remove my bloody

hands from the night.

The night recompensed me

with its carmine colour.

The cats with their love.

The nouveaux riches with their money.

The walls with their sensitivity,

the critics with dirty

slimy footprints

on my works.

The night painted

my two hands.

I withdraw them from its favour.

Hide them.

Stick them into my pockets.

Lead them astray

by holding a cigarillo,

a glass of Bacardi,

a girl’s nipple,

a boy’s mop,

my mother’s white hair.

I fondle not the night, O Lord.

Παράθυρα Λογοτεχνίας για Νέους

Intellectum 10

[
Menu