FALL
2007
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FALL 2007
Dimitris Lyacos |
Z213: EXIT |
(Translated in English by Shorsha Sullivan)
Page 9 The slow bells from the church which must be near me, I stopped for a while and waited and now they were chiming again; and here where I sat, like stains below on the slabs as if it were blood; Who was there ringing, guesses confused, not made clear, who was there ringing the bell, waves coming down from the dome, the echo of an ocean which leaks from above, and drips here. And the flashes that come through the window, from the one to the other, like a searchlight turning around seeking me out. Here, in a flooded pit full of bodies, branches that cover and float leaves that float on faces unknown beside funerary gifts, phrases belonging to him and the Writ mixed on this page, and further down sea tombs and then something between the frozen palms. Gestures on the walls that invite you. A hole high up opposite, you can hold on to the shoots of the ivy to climb up and see where exactly you are. You don’t care, the tracks hold you the people they brought here, something they lived, and the pain they felt and before they died they came and sat here together like the leaves that came in, where from you don’t know, a pile that gathers in front of the saints, and them all together, one by the other, side by side, on the other side all together to look at them kneel, a circle that will hold them a while. But, release, and what ‘s left, yellow mouths going out again from those arches which covered them, and they dream still for a while of courtyards where the souls find rest, a flower sequence of angels awaiting them there. And then the delusion dries up and it is an empty uninhabited house. The icons below the colour that changes the same shape the same face painted again on the walls. And there, in the corner, the body demolished, like metal plates sunken within it, until dark falls completely, leaning out from the last fading saint, his face pressing lips tight.
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Dimitris Lyacos was born in Athens in 1966. His trilogy Poena Damni (Z213: Exit, Nyctivoe, The First Death) has been translated into English, Spanish, Italian and German and has been performed extensively across Europe and the USA. A sound and sculpture installation of Nyctivoe opened in London and toured Europe in 2004-2005. A contemporary dance performance based on the same book is currently showing in Greece. To read more extracts from this book visit http://www.lyacos.net/publications.htm
Translator Shorsha Sullivan was born in Dublin in 1932. He studied Classics at Leeds and has spent most of his working life in England. He has a special interest in Modern Greek theatre and poetry.
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