Let us treat Yes as a No…and No as a Yes
~ Nikos Karouzos, ‘Texts/Non-fiction/Prose’
Greece,
Your no is also a yes
To other things,
You spurned usurers
For Athens’ pride
Greece,
You stood through war
Resisted fascists,
Your poets wrote poems
On cigarette packs
Greece,
Your silences are oracles
Of time’s future,
With your aching hands
You fisted tables
You resisted the enemy
Greece,
You sabotaged
The plans of annexation
Burning bridges
Greece,
You let Marx sit on your
Stoic shoulders,
Your cynics defied kings
Trusted workers
Your history is a miracle
Greece,
You are a library
Of words that escaped fire
Survived Caesar
The world is in your debt
Greece,
They can’t repay
The wonders of your urns
And your verses
Today you brave penury
Greece,
With the grit
Of a working class poet
Who resisted
He left behind omens
On paper
They remain inscribed
In the eyes
“But perhaps dawn will reveal a new face”[1]
Manash Bhattacharjee
July 10, 2015, Delhi
Footnotes
- Yannis Ritsos
About the Author
Photo credit: Rajarshi Dasgupta
Manash Bhattacharjee is a poet, writer, translator and political science scholar from Jawaharlal Nehru University. His poems have appeared in The London Magazine, New Welsh Review, The Fortnightly Review, Elohi Gadugi Journal, George Szirtes’ Blog, Warscapes, First Proof: The Penguin Books of New Writing from India (Volume 5), The Missing Slate, The Little Magazine, etc. His first collection of poetry, Ghalib’s Tomb and Other Poems (2013), was published by U.K’s oldest literary journal, The London Magazine. He is currently Adjunct Professor in the School of Culture and Creative Expressions at Ambedkar University, New Delhi.
