SOLOMOS IN MY DREAM

How we fall into the night and from what longings . . .
Decked out in keen loneliness I began to sleep,
white, sweating within the cow of slumber
completely enclosed by the dream which undulates in the depths
and steadily gains on the matter beyond it.
One day breaking cleansed my eyes;
in the heavens all the windows were opening and Dionysios,
dressed in black with white gloves, held a little worm
in his palm, which seemed to be dyed with white lead,
next to him on a beautiful beach
the swimmers dove in after the cross of Epiphany
and in the distance how innocent the gunshots sounded,
the thunder of love, the joy of disaster
with all the flowers ticking in blue seconds with all the sunbeams,
the beloved butterfly in its sacred survival
and dragons with scented breath climbing yellow stairways
to the young girls who had not savored love.
All around was a forest intensely green
with birds innumerable as fruit on trees.
with birds in intoxicated assembly forever, and a dog,
moving slowly, peed on the trunk of a nearby almond tree
with leg lifted and all the while
the wailing slaughtered the voice which leapt from three words

these dreadful millennia

SOLOMOS IN MY DREAM