Spiros Vergos, Greece
Por:
Spiros Vergos
Traductor:
Alexandra Bücher and Claudine Tourniaire
Death, in my country, was always a traitor
like some forgotten quisling
listlessly roaming the ranci
to the tune of an old-fashioned wa1tz - dancing
into the wind.
Death, in my country,
was never on our side:
"This, my child, is all down to our fate"
or "Every man gets the boss he deserves",
our superstitious villagers would mutter.
Then I
- a Greek tailor-made for his fate
murdered that History of mine with a revolver
I the dream-murderer
like Raskolnikov with his axe.
And now my mother, with a red kerchief
secures the precious legends in her bosom now my mother,
with a mournful kerchief presses one last bunch of rosy hopes
painting the body of my homeland
azure-blue, same as her smile.
Death lasts as tang
as hesitation.
Spiros Vergos was born in Athens, Greece, in 1945, died in Prague in 2007. Poet, narrator and journalist, in 1967, when the dictatorship in his country started, he exiled himself in England, France, Switzerland and Holland. His publications include three poetry collections: Anonimíes; Martiría thanatu included in the most recent collection Riyes sto jrono, When democracy was reinstated in his country, he worked as a journalist in the Athens journal Kathimerini, in the TV program Paraskinio and in the area of foreign affairs of the diary Ta Nea. He has also been personal assistant to the Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs in political cooperation issues with the E.U. In 1987 he was named director of The National Radio in Athens, he has also been counselor to the Greek embassy in Buenos Aires.
