Yannis Ritsos - Poems Quotes

“The lonely moon — look — like a silver plate, like a plate full of leftovers at the small restaurant of sorrow when the travellers are gone and you hear the far away whistle of the ship under the night rooms.”
― Manolis Aligizakis, Yannis Ritsos - Poems: Selected Books – Volume II, Second Edition

“The wind always perks up at midnight. The houses buzz. The posters from last year’s movies flutter on the walls”
― Manolis Aligizakis, Yannis Ritsos - Poems: Selected Books – Volume II, Second Edition

“The leaves of our small lemon tree wilt slowly in the garden as the bus tickets from our past expeditions to the shore get wilted in the pockets of our summer pants.”
― Manolis Aligizakis, Yannis Ritsos - Poems: Selected Books – Volume II, Second Edition

“When you say tomorrow is as if you want to console someone.”
― Manolis Aligizakis, Yannis Ritsos - Poems: Selected Books – Volume II, Second Edition

“The sky cleared up; a piece of it lights the window —”
― Manolis Aligizakis, Yannis Ritsos - Poems: Selected Books – Volume II, Second Edition

“Do you remember that morning? A foreign ship was entering the harbour. The foreign captain on the bridge took off his hat and waved to the Greek fishing boats, our cruising boats which sailed off to Salamina, Paros and Aegina. We waved too; we spelled the foreign language letters on the wide side of the ship as if we read the word I love you in our first love letter.”
― Manolis Aligizakis, Yannis Ritsos - Poems: Selected Books – Volume II, Second Edition

“The clouds rise on the horizon — lots of clouds like the empty baskets of the fruit sellers stacked on the side of the quay when winter comes — they hide the sea.”
― Manolis Aligizakis, Yannis Ritsos - Poems: Selected Books – Volume II, Second Edition

“How bitter is the evening. The evening star is red against the grey sky of the neighbourhood like the bloodied hole in the shirt of the killed man.”
― Manolis Aligizakis, Yannis Ritsos - Poems: Selected Books – Volume II, Second Edition

“Now the last two birds drink rain water from the half part of the broken violin.”
― Manolis Aligizakis, Yannis Ritsos - Poems: Selected Books – Volume II, Second Edition

“you listen to the great music while you saunter in the harbour with the twelve boat masts like a speechless restaurant server who cleans the autumnal tables folding carefully the napkins of the night, gathering  the stack  of plates with the leftover fish bones.”
― Manolis Aligizakis, Yannis Ritsos - Poems: Selected Books – Volume II, Second Edition

“sorrow you left behind on the ledge like the ripped shoe of the spring that was left on the rock when the last group grabbed three meters of sea and left stooping among the tents of the wind.”
― Manolis Aligizakis, Yannis Ritsos - Poems: Selected Books – Volume II, Second Edition

“The sky has known of us before we knew each other, before we separated, before the handkerchief was waved from the deck.”
― Manolis Aligizakis, Yannis Ritsos - Poems: Selected Books – Volume II, Second Edition

“You, my friend, you come back when the countryside is deserted every time the vacationers with their suitcases wait at the quay and the evenings are sitting all alone in the square of the island a long line of empty chairs turned upside on the round tables where loneliness dines raising its veil a little, and the garden benches left in the rain, my good friend my beloved friend”
― Manolis Aligizakis, Yannis Ritsos - Poems: Selected Books – Volume II, Second Edition

“The glasses again, the cigarette butts — all the same; nothing changes inside this mirror.”
― Manolis Aligizakis, Yannis Ritsos - Poems: Selected Books – Volume II, Second Edition

“there is a silent happiness behind the closed window shutters, as if you were touching, with your sorrowful fingers, that same tortured hand of our old friend.”
― Manolis Aligizakis, Yannis Ritsos - Poems: Selected Books – Volume II, Second Edition

“We’re better off to gather our days, to fold them as we fold our summer cloths before we place them in the chest, to place our joined hands on our knees now when the clouds yawn over the roofs now when sorrow spreads over your face silently like the silence in the room of the university student while the tempest intensifies outside.”
― Manolis Aligizakis, Yannis Ritsos - Poems: Selected Books – Volume II, Second Edition

“The clock of the Station was like the last page of a book and each time you spoke, the name of our motherland came out of your mouth like you take out of the old suitcase the thick flannel- shirt of a farmer.”
― Manolis Aligizakis, Yannis Ritsos - Poems: Selected Books – Volume II, Second Edition

“The sea remains behind the closed eyelids a half seen face behind the bands of rain.”
― Manolis Aligizakis, Yannis Ritsos - Poems: Selected Books – Volume II, Second Edition

“wild olive tree leaf like a cloths peg on the cloths line — who pays attention to it and who will undo the cloths peg that holds the kerchief of summer?”
― Manolis Aligizakis, Yannis Ritsos - Poems: Selected Books – Volume II, Second Edition