“Child with a photograph”: a poem by Kyriakos Charalambides translated by A.K. Petrides

Tags

"Ο Θόλος" (1989), "Παιδί με μια φωτογραφία", "The Dome" (1989), Greek poetry of Cyprus, Κυπριακό, Κυριάκος Χαραλαμπίδης, Κύπρος, Κύπρος 1974, μελοποιημένη ελληνική ποίηση, Kyriakos Charalambides, Modern Greek poetry, Modern Greek poetry in translation

The poem is included in the collection The Dome (Ο Θόλος, 1989). Υou can read the Greek original here.

A child with a photograph in hand,
a photograph in the profundity of his eyes,
held upside down, was staring.
 
Around the child a crowd; and he
had in his eyes a small photograph,
a big one on his shoulders and vice versa —
a big one in his eyes, upon his shoulders a smaller one,
and in his hand one even smaller still.
 
He was amid a crowd screaming chants
and he was holding it upside down; it troubled me.
 
I approach him bypassing signs
of loved ones or arcs and voices
frozen in time and all completely inert.
 
The photograph bore some resemblance to his father.
I set it straight, and still I saw
the missing man with his head upside down.
 
Just like the king, the jack and the queen,
which, seen upturned, are found to be straight,
this man, as well, when looked at straight,
turns upside down and stares.

OTHER TRANSLATED POETRY BY KYRIAKOS CHARALAMBIDES ON THIS BLOG:

• “Orestes”
• “Agamemnon”
• “Ardana II”
• “At his daughter’s wedding”