Red Night

Το ντουλάπι μου παραβιάστηκε. Έμεινε μέσα μόνο ένα μαγνητάκι από ένα σουβλατζίδικο. Ελπίζω να ήταν περισσότερα από ένα άτομα που το έκαναν. Δε μπορώ να φανταστώ ποιος θα κρατούσε για τον εαυτό του σημειώσεις για τον καρκίνο του μαστού, ένα βιβλίο του Μαρκέζ κι ένα ζευγάρι παπούτσια, τόσο γεμάτα αίμα και αντισηπτικό που ακόμα και η φωτιά που θα τα έκαιγε, έπρεπε να καεί για λόγους υγιεινής. Δε νομίζω πως υπάρχει άτομο με τέτοιο εύρος ενδιαφερόντων. Ακόμα κι εγώ που ήμουν ο κάτοχος, σιχαινόμουν αυτά τα κωλοπάπουτσα. Τα κρατούσα μόνο για να τα πετάξω. Είχε συμβολισμό μέσα, δεν ήταν τόσο ηλίθιο όσο ακούγεται.

Η 16χρονη αθίγγανη φωνάζει πως πονάει. Η Σομαλή με την αποκόλληση πλακούντα που μας έκανε να ντυνόμαστε τροχάδην προς το χειρουργείο, άρχισε επιτέλους να ρίχνει την πίεση. Η Ελληνίδα με το αλλεργικό σοκ, προτιμά να κοιμάται με το φως ανοιχτό. Αυτό το αποκρουστικό μπλε φως που βρίσκει κανείς μόνο σε σχολεία τις πρώτες ώρες της μέρας και σε νοσοκομεία τις τελευταίες της νύχτας. Αυτό το γαμημένο φως που με σκοτώνει.

Κοιτούσα τα χέρια μου. Ο ιδρώτας σε αφήνει να διακρίνεις το δέρμα σε σημεία, κάτω από τα λευκά γάντια. Στην αρχή, γιατί μετά καμιά ματιά δε φτάνει κάτω από το αίμα. Αυτά τα γάντια κάνουν όλα τα χέρια να φαίνονται όμορφα. Και το αίμα κάνει όλα τα χέρια να φαίνονται χρήσιμα. Κοιτούσα τα χέρια μου, το λευκό και το κόκκινο και κρατιόμουν να μη γελάσω. Απ' έξω φαίνονται όλα τόσο σημαντικά, τόσο σοβαρά. Ντύνεσαι με μια στολή που έχει περάσει από κλιβάνους και ακτινοβολίες, φοράς μια μάσκα που δεν αφήνει τα κατάλοιπα της ανάσας σου να αγγίξουν τίποτα, φοράς τα λευκά γάντια σου και είσαι έτοιμος να ανταποδώσεις για λίγο το νόημα της ζωής σου. Ήθελα τόσο πολύ να γελάσω. Ήθελα να φωνάξω κάτω από τη μάσκα "τι μαλακίες κάνουμε εδώ;" και να γελάσω, να σηκωθούμε όλοι να φύγουμε, οι σοβαροί, οι αναίσθητοι, οι αναισθητοποιημένοι, όλοι, να σηκωθούμε να φύγουμε και να προλάβουμε να κάνουμε κάτι με το χρόνο που μας έμεινε. Κάτι που δε θα ήταν γεμάτο προσποιητές σημαντικότητες.

Αν μάθαμε κάτι στην βραχύβια παραμονή μας εδώ, είναι να ξεχνάμε και να μετονομάζουμε την αρρώστια γύρω μας. Μάθαμε να πιστεύουμε πως το φυσικό είναι όμορφο, γιατί καταφέραμε να κλείσουμε το φυσικό έξω και μακρυά μας. Κι όλα όσα βλέπουμε μέσα από τηλεσκόπια, μικροσκόπια και μάτια που δεν κλαίνε εκλιπαρώντας για λίγες ενδορφίνες, τα ονομάσαμε θαύματα.

Είμαι ένα δωμάτιο δίπλα από ένα τέτοιο θαύμα. Ένα θαύμα που αυτή τη στιγμή ουρλιάζει το όνομά μου, από έναν πόνο που σε δύο ώρες, όλοι θα θεωρούμε πανέμορφο. Έναν πόνο που θα αναπαράγει πόνο που θα αναπαράγει πόνο, όπως τα πάντα στη φύση ξέρουν να κάνουν και να ξεχνούν.

Και όταν φοράω τα γάντια μου και μπαίνω μέσα στον πόνο αυτό, όταν τον κάνω μετρήσιμο, τον κάνω εκατοστά και ώρες και σταγόνες ανά λεπτό, κρατιέμαι να μην ρωτήσω "γιατί τα κάνουμε όλα αυτά ρε κορίτσι μου;"

Αλλά δε το κάνω. Λέω το παραμύθι, κρατάω τα νούμερα για τον εαυτό μου και αλλάζω γάντια.

Ξανά και ξανά και ξανά.

Our days of shooting stars.

There was a boy with stars in his hands
hidden songs in his hair, and a sunrise on his back
In a time when the roads would stretch endless
paved with gold, leading up above the dream

There was a place where horizons were absent
and all things could be reached with the tap of a wand
when the world was still magic and the footsteps were friends
and life was flooding out my cup of smiles and bicycles

Now the arc has been drawn and the ground comes back closer
my bright orbit has grown old into everyday gravity
and the choices that drove me and moved me and held me
they float up beyond reach of my fingers that fall

I am not really sorry for all those that have happened
and I'm not really sad for the things that have not
after all, in the end we are all only ashes;
your absence calls me not to forget that

I am not really sorry for all those roads not taken
and there's still some more time to catch up
but the truth is, you were so much wrong
for the faith and the hopes that you forced me to carry

Now the halo you nailed on my forehead is rusty
can't remember in which drawer I keep it
and the wings that would bring all my dreams in reach
they're now feathers inside my soft pillow

Now the boy with the stars in his hands has grown older
and though young he's as gray as you were
lacking faith, lacking loss, lacking dreams
he is glad that you're not here to see him

As I sit on the gold-paved sidewalk that's shinning
looking down on the shoes on the street
that go running towards blank horizons
I light a cigarette; and I regret for nothing

Nothing has gone as gloriously as you'd wanted
everything has gone terribly right
you are not here to see; but I brought you some flowers
my own guilty way to forgive you

There was a boy with wings on his shoulders
standing out from the crowd, the neighborhood's messiah
but his palms faded out the stars he was holding
now a memoir in some girl's wrinkling neck

I am not really sorry for letting it all go
I'm not sad I'm no longer your dream
In the end, we're all ashes and starlight alike
And this, I'm glad I can no longer tell you.

Morning Ballad.

He wiped the tears and lined the lips, the ticking clock inside him broken
She cleared her throat and drew a breath, condemning seas of words unspoken.
The bed was soft, the light was warm, the weekend sun shone through the trees
The air was soft, blue scattered flowers were dancing graceful with the breeze.

He moved a bit, and drew it close -his arm then bloomed into a hug
He pulled her near and felt her neck, soft skin’s aroma, soft skin's drug
He felt the edge against his thumb, the mute, cold alloy never lies
A drop of crimson stained the floor, a drop of moist between her thighs.

He turned around and guessed her gaze, he smiled at her the smile of bane
His lips on hers, warm fingers tightened, the usual press that brings the stain
A golden ray, a silver gleam, a vow and dream of one last strife
Obsolete love, all sweetness endeth; herald the end of what was life.

And she said "die" last night, did you not hear?
A word too final maybe for feelings to amend
They kissed; she asked him teasingly "What for?"
He speared his neck and whispered "For the End".

Holyland.

Ονειρεύτηκα σήμερα πως δεν είχα φτερά
Και απ' τους ώμους μου δυο χέρια σηκώναν
Μια κλούβα που δεν είχε ουρανό
Και σε κρύες κολώνες ψηλά τη στεριώναν
Και είδα τα πόδια μου να πατούνε την γη
Τείχη ομίχλης τον ορίζοντα κρύβαν
Και απ'το μαύρο σεντόνι ψηλά στους αιθέρες
Όλα τα άστρα χαθήκαν και φύγαν.

Ονειρεύτηκα απόψε πως δεν είχα θεό
Και πως σύγνεφα μαύρα τον κόσμο ανοίγαν
Με φωτιά και με αέρα τα σπίτια χαλούσαν
Και οι μύχιες ελπίδες πεθαίναν και λήγαν
Και τα αδέρφια μου είδα να σπαν σε κομμάτια
Και σε εκρήξεις πορφύρας μοιράζονταν όλοι
Απ'τον μαύρο ουρανό λαμπύριζαν φλόγες
Ανακλώμενοι ύμνοι απ'την έκπτωτη πόλη.

Ονειρεύτηκα χθες πως δεν υπήρχαν πια μέρες
Και απ' την κόκκινη ομίχλη μαύρα φώτα αστράφταν
Πως τον άμοιρο ήλιο απ'τον θρόνο του 'ρίξαν
Και πως κείτεται όπου με σφυριά τον εσπάσαν
Και είδα αίμα να πήζει σε παιχνίδια παιδιών
Βαριά άμμος πετούσε σε ριπές πολυβόλων
Και η αγάπη μου ήταν ξαπλωμένη στη γη
Το χαμένο της αίμα πορφυρό όπως όλων.

Ονειρεύτηκα χθες πως δεν είχα ελπίδα
Και στιγμάτιζα μαύρες τις πληγές μου στους ώμους
Με φωτιές και λεπίδες στο κατώφλι μου ήμουν
Ατενίζοντας άδειους τους φλεγόμενους δρόμους
Και στα χέρια μου είδα αίμα χίλιων ανθρώπων
Στα μαλλιά μου μπλεχτήκαν οι ψυχές που χαθήκαν
Και η αγάπη μου ήταν μαύρο πια καρδιοχτύπι
Που 'σβηνε όλα όσα, ως εγώ, ονειρευτήκαν.

Ονειρεύτηκα χθες τα φτερά μου πως κάψαν
Την χρυσή μου αγάπη πως με θάνατο ντύσαν
Τις χαρούμενες μέρες πως με θειάφι τις λούσαν
Και τον μπλε ουρανό με κατράμι ποτίσαν
Ονειρεύτηκα χθες πως ο κόσμος φλεγόταν
Την μικρή μου ζωή πως σε στάχτες φυλούσα
Και τα μαύρα πρωινά δίπλα μου δεν ξυπνούσες
Πορφυρή απουσία για όσα δεν αγαπούσα.

The home that is Athens.

I am the city.
The great mother of countless lives and countless deaths -and that occasional void of all that linger in between.
I stretch my sick and timeless body across the cancerous earth, and hurt and blister and infect its stillness with raw motion.
In feverish persistence, I spread my acrid dominion across space and time -a universe of expendable heartbeats.
Where I begin, every departure seizes -and where I stand, every arrival ends.

I am the cage on whose bars you cling in gratitude.

Beneath my toxic ground, a zillion pale white things are seeded; once breathing brightly as the next.
Oh, the dead of every kind are the dew of my soul -the living, they merely tickle my lips.
Through asphalt arteries I spread my law, through cement windowed teeth I bite the sky
I stretch my arms made of smoke and noises around the clarity of the world and spit within the carbon chaos. Floor after floor I swallow the clouds, one hundred billion elevators claw the heavens down.

Whenever I wake, the sun goes to sleep; whenever in slumber, everything sighs.

Nothing loves the City, because it is the greatest pause before the rest of every suffering thing
And nothing hates the City, because to pause is to postpone -and everything dies.

I, the city. I'm built on broken needles and gas canisters, I feed on rotting pigeons and blocked sewers.
My skin diseases are the lovers on the benches and the candies falling from the children
But in the end, my founding vow prevails, all Life succumbs to me and there is nothing I cannot devour.
I, the gray goddess, have my saints, the pedophiles and rapists and all the harmful urban creatures that feed on my momentum.
I have my thousand apostles, the veinless junkies spreading the message of their spasms and the homeless hungry children
That spread the message of a stallion bitch whose leash I am: Death -on an endless diet until the final madness synchronizes step.
I have my hooveless cattle on the ready, massaging me with heels and tires and knees -ever worshiping their senseless mother.
My heart is your sorrow on the midnight bus, your eyes made of emptiness when you board the subway
Your reason when you rape your daughter, your method when you abandon your child
Your courage when you live and let die, your certainty when you murder emotions.

You don't love me, for I am the ground on which you stain your hands with all the shit your kind is modeled upon.
You don't hate me, because you would do anything, for just a second further and
I am just this fucking second further.

I am the city. Before all alphas and omegas, I'm of the ancient Time and modernized End
The nail and cross of obsolescent gods and devils;
I am your very mother and her rapist, killer, eater, shiter, neverminder too.
In my lungs babies die and old men stretch their arms upon your sister
Young bipeds beat to death their fading, helpless kindred for the banknotes I shit when I digest your dreams.
Brothers end each other, all in the name of expiring power, all beneath my streetlights
The streetlights that make me look yellow and gleaming, like that whore that your father visits on Sundays.

I am the city. I am all that is evil and endless and wrong
And they all happen again and again every moment
Down the alley, round that corner, in that room, in your head
All the graveyards and asylums of the world are piled in my lungs
And are fired in your every day each time I exhale
And you can't afford to know how they're piled each time I inhale.

I am the fucking city that you drool upon. You were born in my lap and back here you will perish
All the loved ones you've known will be buried in me disrespectfully
All the worthless ones will succeed through the munching of bones of great men
I am the city and my soul is the hospital faces that are embossed on the hard bed's finality
I am the city and my eyes are the headlights of trucks when the breaks are not working
I am the city -my voice is the voice of sirens and ambulances and my silence is your speechless pain
I am the city -my breath is the one that should come after your final one
I am the bloody city and you'd fuck me if you could, bite me and eat me and go freely insane
At one burning instant and at once
And not tick after tick after tick after tick
Of my clocks that dictate your service to me.

I am the city, and you make me this way every day
You don't love me nor hate me
For we're made of each other.

As Long As We Have Wings [Abstract].

Let us repeatedly forget of all this warzone
And through the rain of rancid hormones let us end
Until this void becomes this meaning
And work towards that total moment of rebirth
When everything makes sense.

Until it’s crimson, let us dance
For through that carnal intersection
The lifeless highways ghostly stretch
And blend in loving curves with all death coming
For every time, that drunk with lust, we disappear
We have been there
And we will never, ever, die.

7248

I was dragged by two familiar and tired instruments of Service, through seemingly endless junctions and corridors. Immensely complicated routes, through planes and scenes remotely different yet altogether similar. Immensely complicated routes; after a bit it seemed more like as if we were falling, rather than moving horizontally. Then in the end, we stood before a door, it was inscribed rather ridiculously

"Court Number Seven Thousand Two Hundred Fourty Eight".

Around me, all along the corridors, each door bore an inscription.

Remotely similar but altogether different.

And by that, I mean more than just the numbers.

I knocked. Someone knocked back. We entered.

Inside there was a mirror and facing it a chair.

Between them,

on the floor,

a mass of broken glass.

I sat upon the chair as instructed.

I don't really remember by who, although

I do remember

it made little difference.

They placed some kind of headphones in my ears.

Then, they told me to really open my eyes.

I saw the mirror. My head flooded with voices

immensely different

and unique.

Yet altogether singular.

I screamed in a futile attempt to cover them.

But the more I screamed, the more the voices were becoming.

As if each scream was an addition.

I fell upon my knees, and hit the broken glass.

Then, they told me to really wake up.

The voices vanished. The pain flashed dead.

Only plain,

clear words

remained inside my ears.

"We hereby sentence you to serve the penalty of self destruction, as all the jury members have unanimously decided. You have the right to plead yourself not guilty; if so, the charges shall be lifted of you, so as to set you free once more. If you however do acknowledge your punishment as just, we can relieve you of your painful duty to confess. We know, perhaps as well as you yourself, that it will hurt your pride and its subterfuge, confusion, to plead yourself guilty. If we are right, coward, you may remain silent after I finish talking. And if you do, then we will punish you as desired."

What could I say?

I was dragged through one sole door into an almost vacant cell.

Upon the wall facing the door, was one large painting.

It showed a cause for which to suffer.

Besides the painting was a plate,

like those one can find

in art galleries.

It named a reason to suffer for the cause.

On the floor, was a catalogue of instruments of torture.

It would provide me with the means

to suffer for a reason and a cause.

Upon the door was an inscription. It read "You need only to flee, and we will strip you of your crimes."

I gave myself pain. After a while, the wounds grew numb to torment. And this enlarged the shame I felt.

So I had to hurt deeper.

After long hours spent in punishment,

I thought

that I was really free to leave.

Each time my palm would touch the key, I would return.

Always for one hit more. Just one hit more, just to be sure.

I'm here now. Inside the room. I'm pretty certain I'm alone, they were as sure as I that this would work.

And when I get to think that I have bled enough to slip outside the keyhole, another reason calls me back.

Immensely different yet altogether just the same.

I'm here now. I scream pretending I can suffer still.

Each time that I fake it, I feel the need to suffer harder.

Up until now, each scream of need, was an addition.

And every time I see the writing on the door,

I feel the need to make my leaving worth it.

Don't let it be just a retreat.

Up until now, each dream of flight, was an audition.

Chasing my shadow.

Το κείμενο είναι γραμμένο κάπου 5 χρόνια πριν και είναι αφιερωμένο στον Γιάννη.

"Are you afraid of living?" she fired through her crimson lips. Holding me in a gaze of unveiled rudeness, she silently awaited my defeat. Not kind enough to even hold her breath while waiting, she simply yearned for my bloodloss through words. Are you afraid of living? And a smile devised as a razorblade ripping through my irises into the depths of a darkness none but she could understand. The perfume of her victory reached me with fingers that penetrated will and shelter. She was asking me a question against which, no answer could stand in decent opposition. She turned her back of ivory to me and walked with steps of sexual malice deeper in the room. I was nailed upon the bed, my head was chained upon the wall, my heart was beating in her palm of iron. Her fingers ran upon the desk, the glass was turning into water before her nails as razors and when she reached the end, where nothing but the void was left to torture, she turned around to face me. But she said nothing. She had already adorned my mind with thoughts of broken glass. All she would do -I knew- was to simply watch it bleed along my words. I closed my eyes praying I could break, praying I could have some subterfuge throughout my torment. But she knew not what mercy was, and she would only stop when tedium won her, or tears consumed me. But after that, she was of no need to me, I reigned my world with my misery, and that she would not permit.

So there I sat, the golden glass engraved inside my hand, the heavy sips like death's saliva, tearing down my thoughts, tearing down my feelings, tearing down my walls. I could not answer. How could I answer without lying? How could I tell her without juggling every word inside her mind? So there I sat, the glass in lust to empty faster than I would, the crystal begging me to break it before I would eventually do so myself.

She came to me, and held my face inside her palms that burned with frost. "Will you have me wait much longer?" What was it? Minutes? Hours? What could she know of eternity, what could the devil know of hell but to command it? It was for me to feel the pain of the hourglass; it was for me to taste her inferno.

I broke the glass. "Answer me."

I held a fragment in my hand.

"Answer me."

It echoed zillion times. Tears began to smash but I was feeling nothing.

She walked away her boots clicking on the floor, her body dancing on the rhythm of total flesh. But I was indifferent. I arose, tears and broken glass my trail, a trail I could not walk back without bleeding. I met her somewhere in the middle. Not very far ahead, and not an inch behind. "Are you afraid of dying?" I whispered with my lips against her own. My palm was bleeding by the fragment I still held, but I would not let go. I clenched my fist tighter to remind myself it was there. And for every memory, I bled. She was kissing me in silence, without tenderness, without that sensual disgust one can meet between crestfallen lovers. Without knowledge of love, and without hope for hate. I was kissing her back, biting whenever her tongue could be felt beneath my teeth, whenever apathy allowed her lip to be uncovered. Somewhere in the middle, not very far ahead and not an inch behind we were kissing. Each time her hand would press against my face, my own would bleed. A drop for every sight now gone. A drop for every dream now dead. A drop just to remind me.

We ended up curled in a carnal polarity, and I was cathode. I was to be conquered that day, my silence counting as an answer. But death was in my pocket, and life was frail enough. So maybe I could bear to fake a smile.

And when I was hers, and naked we would lie upon the sharp bed, when she was busy counting the wounds she had drawn as a painter on a canvas made of flesh and tears, I asked her again.

The tongue of raw sensuality retaliated:

"Death is inevitable, so fear is needless."

"And is not life inevitable?"

"Only for the brave."

"Only for the damned."

Then she kissed me. That meant one thing. Conversating with chaos was over. My fingers grew in tension. The glass was sharp as never before. The fragment of a glass once full. The only thing I owned. A fragment. Sharper than never before. Fury entered from inside. God was dying where my glance was falling.

Her smile would not fade as I drew the line across her neck. The voice she could no longer utter was drumming in my head; her eyes were filled with a blaze of eternal victory. She held my hand, blood running down her naked body covering the curves that flared no more than hate in me. She held my hand and whispered in a voice that refused to crack, she whispered "Just inevitable." And then she fell enrobed in such a shade of malevolent glory that I shuddered. There was no deviation from the path I lusted, from the path whose idea she had raped. I rested the fragment on my wrist in freezing silence. I swear I saw her smiling from beyond then. But madness came. I threw the piece away, the final piece of my belongings, I crouched above her as a dying raven rests above a carcass and I smiled in a way only vengeance can teach. The raven proved eclectic.

"I am not afraid."

Then I opened the door and walked out.

Out to chase my shadow.

Kindly refill.

The warmth is leaving the thin glass walls. Abandoning the sleek, transparent palissades, it slips inside my fingers.
Thermodynamics. Isn't that kind of law that brings us here again? Can't hear you.
I wish she could unwrap her mouth from 'round my shaft. I wish I could just snap my fingers and she vanished.
The long-term intimacy of strangers -alienation is the strongest bond between us, it's shared by the whole world.
But she is so much the same. Another sip. Another sip. Another sip. Synchronization -I bet I don't taste sweeter.
She came to me and smiled. She came and gazed at me as if I was supposed to interact. With smiles and gazes?
What the fuck.
She told me her name was something, but I only heard "ordinary".
She told me various things that ought to make me feel flattered. I only heard "bad taste".
And then she touched me, and then the mathematics bloomed.
The patterns spread and flanked and dominated her, the numbers and the chances, the routes and the restraints.
The routine equations.
Goddamn, why did I ever bother, she's still just muscles, hormones and psychology.
She doesn't really ask me whether I am afraid of living, she doesn't really thrash me down her pits...
She's just a non-electrical, uncharged, unnerved machinery supply.
Goddamn, why did I even bother to think up to this line.
This service kills me. Suffocates me. Bores me to the core.
So let the body heave on its reactions while I go strolling on the happy days.
I'll leave this cold dystopia, this crumbled future that only weighs as much as dogfood glory.
I will go back, electrocute the faded memories, the faded proof of brighter moments.
I'll try to stand again over the raging Atlantic, stand on the western end of my continental mother.
I'll try to see the foam exploding on the rocks again, I'll try to hear the big white seagulls raiding the breeze.
Until it ends, until my nerves discharge electrolytes, until oxytocin whips out the wet reward of one tongue lashing flesh.
Until it ends, I will be innocent again. Until it ends, I will be needless of her lust -needless in a holier way.
Alas, it never lasts long enough, does it? A question asked to anyone, regardless of their gender.
And so we're back, beneath our polished ceiling and our ordered environment, with bloody heels upon the unpredictable.
Don't kiss my lips, goddamn, I've just seen them suck me for God's sake. And don't touch my face, don't act tender.
I, I do not love you.
Not that you do, you're just intoxicated with a false bravado, a foolish faith you're letting yourself get hurt.
Bitch, I'm not even hurting you.
Don't think -kindly refill this- that your weak blend of sacrifice and good, good will impresses anyone.
You're not my Jesus -hell, even Jesus himself is not. And you're not some antihero for tolerating me.
It's just a choice for both of us, it makes you stupid, it makes me bored. Punkt. That's all there is to it.
So love. Do leave the tenderness aside. Do live the act as if it was really the case. We've come this far, we tread on the dreams of our good days every fucking moment. We suffocate the visions of our paradise lost with every breath that hauls small molecules of oxygen inside.
What I'm trying to say is, we hate this. We never wanted it to end this way.
But this doesn't mean we're some sort of Shakespearian lovers whose love is gasoline and circumstances fire.
We're Epicurean. Biomechanical hedonists, who hopefully invest in style. So if you're planning on despairing, crying, breaking, going mad, humanely loving me -do so in style.
I ask of nothing else, of anyone, anymore.
Kindly refill –let’s drink to the Atlantic.

Το Στοιχειό

Υπάρχει μέσα στον καθένα, μια τάφρος μεγάλη. Μια τάφρος βαθειά, τόσο που της ελπίδας το ανάστημα δεν φτάνει για να σηκωθεί και να ατενίσει, και τόσο πλατειά, που τα όνειρα που ο έρωτας, η ξαφνική χαρά και η ξεγνοιασιά εκτινάσσουν, πέφτουνε μέσα της δίχως η αέρινη τροχιά τους να την προσπερνά.

Υπάρχει γύρω απ' τον καθένα ένα στοιχειό που κοιμάται, και από καιρό σε καιρό φτάνουν σε μας τα όσα στον ύπνο του γνέθει, 'κείνες τις στιγμές που για μια ανάσα ο κόσμος γκριζάρει και οι φλέβες μας μουδιάζουν. Και μερικές φορές ξυπνά και πάει να μας ξεφύγει, και τρέχει πάνω στις σκεπές τρομάζοντας τα πουλιά και τις γάτες -έχετε δει γάτες να κυνηγάνε στοιχειά πολλές φορές- και σπάζοντας τα πιο λεπτά κεραμίδια. Και παραμονεύει να μας χάσει πίσω απ' τα ακροκέραμα, πριν η μουγκή λαλιά που μας ορίζει, βροντήξει ανήκουστη ανάμεσα απ' τα αυτιά μας. Τότε γυρνάμε την ματιά μας πάνω του, και αυτό φρίττει και τρέμει κάτω από τους φωτοβολισμούς της τυφλής μας ματιάς.

Υπάρχει μέσα στον καθένα μας, μια θλίψη μεγάλη, που την κοιμίζουμε με βία και με τις φτέρνες μας της λιώνουμε τα λόγια. Την φτύνουμε όταν μας βλέπουν με αυτή παρέα και σαν σκιάχτρο την κρεμάμε -και αν θέλουν οι όμοιές της ας κοπιάσουν. Βροντά ο χαμός της και αντηχεί μέσα στην λαμπερή μας πανοπλία, και όταν μέσα απ' τον πλαδαρό αέρα περνάμε, το ευγενικό μας χαμόγελο είναι το το πειστήριο του φόνου.

Έρχονται όμως στιγμές, μικρές στιγμές έκστασης και ανάγκης, χαράς και περηφάνιας, που το σκιάχτρο χωρίζει τα βλέφαρα, και μας κοιτά και αυτό με ένα χαμόγελο ευγενικό. Έχετε ακούσει τον ήχο που κάνετε όταν σπάτε, είναι μουντός και ρυθμικός και πλέει στο στέρνο σας μέσα -δε ζει κανείς δίχως να σπάει. Και τότε φεύγουν οι δοκοί και οι πλίνθοι, τα πάντα θύελλα πορφυρή και αμβλεία σαρώνει, πλημμυρίζει το στέρνο, πλημμυρίζουν τα μάτια και βήχουμε ζωή και κλαίμε δύναμη. Στο μεγαλείο μας πάνω, εκεί που ήσυχοι στο θρόνο μας τις ατσαλένιες μας αμπάρες και τις άψυχες, αδυσώπητες στρατιές μας καμαρώνουμε, όταν τα μάτια μας ακινητούν και οι παλμοί σωπαίνουν -τότε, από την τάφρο στρωμένη με τα όσα ωραία και άξια κίνησαν να ανοιχτούν να φύγουν, επιστρέφει πάνω σε πτώματα πατώντας, το στοιχειό που δεν αφήνουμε ανθρώπινα να φύγει.