Vol 1 No 1 2007

Translator’s Note

The Saviour
Translation

God’s Three Tears
Translation

John Benjamin D’Arkozi:
The Deadman amid the Living

Translation

Gifts
Translation

The Separated
Translation

Death
Translation

The Saviour

On the fingers of my severed hands I count
the hours I’ve wasted in these rooms of wind
I don’t have other hands my love and the doors
don’t want to close and the dogs are relentless

With my bare feet immersed in these dirty waters
With my bare heart I search for a blue window
(not for myself)
how did they ever create such rooms such sad books
without a single crack of light
without a single breath of air
for the sick reader

And since every room is an open wound
how will I descend the crumbling stairs again
between the dirt and the wild dogs
to bring medicine and rose-coloured bandages
and if I find the pharmacy closed
and if I find the pharmacist dead
and if find my bare heart in the pharmacy’s display case

No no it’s finished there isn’t any salvation

The rooms will remain as they are
with wind and its reeds
with shards of groaning glass faces
with their colourless bleeding
with porcelain hands reaching for me
with unforgivable oblivion

My own flesh hands forgot they were severed
the moment I began counting their pain

Míltos SachtoúrisEvan Jones

Evan Jones