Thursday, April 9, 2015

Seferis' Houses

artwork by ralph murre after a photo by (of?) george seferis


George Seferis, a Greek poet and diplomat
born in Smyrni (now Izmir), Turkey, won
the 1963 Nobel Prize for Literature

Seferis’ Houses
by Stella Pierides

The houses he had owned
they took away from him.

Seferis carried his home
on his back like a tortoise.
Iron beds in empty hotel rooms
rang through his lines,
and the sounds of loneliness–
the silent screams of souls
left to themselves
in the dark.

The houses he had owned they
took away from him.

He used his poetry,
he strung words from the stars
stared at them from afar.
Flowers of Agapanthus
he nailed on his lines,
and crickets, beating time
for the machine.

Only briefly did he go back to Smyrni.

For he knew. Seferis knew. He knew
you have to talk to the dead.
Hades is full of whispers–
the house is always watching.
And waiting.

~ appeared in Gathering Diamonds from the Well: London
   (New Gallery Books)