“Beginning of the indiction”: a poem by Kyriakos Charalambides translated by A.K. Petrides

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"Famagusta Reigning City", "Αρχή Ινδίκτου", "Αμμόχωστος Βασιλεύουσα (1982)", Ammochostos, Cyprus, Cyprus problem, Famagusta, Κυριάκος Χαραλαμπίδης, Νεοελληνική ποίηση, ελληνική λογοτεχνία της Κύπρου, Kyriakos Charalambides, Modern Greek literature of Cyprus, Modern Greek poetry, Modern Greek poetry in translation, Turkish invasion 1974

[The poem is included in the collection Famagusta Reigning City (Αμμόχωστος Βασιλεύουσα, 1982). Υou can read the Greek original (“Αρχή Ινδίκτου”) here. The place names mentioned in the poems are all streets or parishes of the Turkish-occupied city of Ammochostos (Famagusta)]

BEGINNING OF THE INDICTION

Who Pnytagoras is, we all know
or at least we all could learn
(they say he was a king of Salamis).
But Pnytagoras Street, my precious Pnytagoras’,
in-between Timios Stavros and Hagia Zoni,
what that is, I and only I can know. Woe is me:
I envy the rats of this road,
the stray dogs, the wild cats,
which coming from Acropolis Street and descending
into Pentelis’ and Hilarion’s disembogue
into my very own Street of Pnytagoras — lucky lads!
 
I wish I could be my house’s rat,
the stray dog that enters my garden,
and the wild cat that’s opening the fridge
to find his forgotten piece of chicken.
 
If only I could be the snake and the nettle,
the tree that withered, the broken door,
amaranthine yearning falling dead
to sleep in the webs of a spider.