Live Encounters Greek Poets & Writers September 2026
Pax Americana
or
World Peace (whether you like it or not), poems by Yiannis Patilis
Translated from Greek by Aristi Trendel.
Pax Americana
or
World Peace (whether you like it or not)
I think that on this matter
We ought to ask, as is customary,
Those most qualified for Humanity
In their field:
The Romans.
Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus,
for instance.
He said it concisely and memorably:
Si vis pacem, para bellum.[1]
Which indeed came to pass:
Pistole Luger Parabellum, model 1908,
The sidearm of the German Imperial
Army.
Also used by the Nazis until 1945.
The most famous in History to this day!
Tested in two World Wars
And one hundred million dead
The means for World Peace
Proved its unquestionable value.
World Peace is indeed
Something very expensive.
And no trial for its domination
Will ever be superfluous.
And today, as we speak,
And forever in the Future.
[1] In Latin in the text: “If you want peace, prepare for war.”
(Unpublished)
When do we celebrate poetry?
A greeting from afar
to be read on the 21st of March
by the Music School of Komotini
Poetry needs darkness to celebrate
deep darkness like the one
that crushed the wretched Oedipus
when he thought he would escape the prophecy
it needs Medea’s bloody feast
when she realized she had lost forever
her bridegroom.
Achilles’ black abyss of honor,
when the beautiful spoil
was torn from his bed by his lord.
No! poetry is no catechism school
nor is the poet a romantic waiter
who will bring us a soft drink on the veranda
The poet is a butcher of his own language
dark-souled, burning his own fat
to make a candle
to light, above all,
his Erinys
At night we celebrate poetry
with poems as candles
that poets the world over
have lit for solace
in the unimaginable stretch
of darkness.
Look around you and behind you
and see
how silent, how beautiful,
and how many are burning.
And above all think
that you too can, if needed,
make one.
That is why
do not ask me again
when we celebrate poetry
On the twenty-first of March we simply
observe
one minute of silence
all together mourning
for all those days
and nights of our lives
deprived
of the candle
of Poetry
The Ebb of Alcohol and Other Poems, Ypsilon, 2012
© Yiannis Patilis
Yiannis Patilis (Athens, 1947) studied Law and Modern Greek Literature at the University of Athens and worked as a teacher in secondary education. From 1986 to 2012, he was the founder and editor of Planodion, a journal of literature, politics, and culture. Since 2010, he has been the founder and editor of the online magazine Planodion Bonsai Stories, dedicated to flash fiction. He has published ten poetry collections, and three volumes of collected poems; his latest fourth volume: The Broken is the Most Resistant, Poems 1970–2024 (Ypsilon Books, 2023). His work has been translated into several languages, including English (Camel of Darkness: Selected Poems, translated by Stathis Gourgouris, Quarterly Review of Literature, Princeton, 1997) and Spanish (Lo Roto Es Más Persistente, translated by Antonio José Moreno Jurado, Renacimiento, 2018).