Live Encounters Greek Poets & Writers September 2026
His Way, poems by Yiorgos Veis.
Translated from Greek by Aristi Trendel.
His Way
He could, of course, write every day
from early dawn until late afternoon
for he has so much to give to the page
yes, for her alone
but perhaps even that is not enough
so in this way he abandons himself to words
to the mercy of meanings
a self-taught pupil of syllables
and so, in the end, he may find a way
never to forget
how much he owes her
from that first moment
her gaze showed him the road
to the homeland of pleasure
(Unpublished)
The Same, the Other/Or
He looked again at the photograph, from the beginning
He reread what they had written in their diary.
They were certain that only there could the truth be found
It is all about the Tao
only we are not going
to learn the Tao of truth.
Yes, we call it that
but it is not its real name
nor does the birth of heaven and earth have a name
while it is the mother of the universe.
Still, we will understand the secret
if we remain utterly undistracted,
and of course, we can see its images
as long as we long deeply for something.
Both together
the mystery and its images
flow from the same wellspring.
And this source is darkness,
a darkness absolute, incorruptible
and yet there awaits us
the door, open to the secrets of life.
The only thing they did not know
was where exactly to open the quotation marks
and when to close them.
The lake convinced him that they were already in Beijing
in the Forbidden City, reading Lao Tzu
translating once again the Tao Te Ching
Until suddenly the photograph
opened by itself in the middle
Then the road appeared in the half-light of the words
It looked a little like Solonos Street
or perhaps like Gua Huan Lu?
In any case, this time he would follow it
without hesitation, without telling anyone
So he suddenly slammed the brakes with all their might
For a moment he managed to see their past
In a luminous sign advertising
The latest gifts of artificial intelligence
But meanwhile the car had a mind of its own
It had no intention of stopping at all
And it kept running, relentless, across the computer screen
2025
(Unpublished)
© Yiorgos Veis
Yiorgos Veis: Ambassador (Ret.) Graduate of the Faculty of Law, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA). Honorary Doctor of the Department of Philology, School of Philosophy, NKUA. Member of the Hellenic Authors’ Society, the Circle of Poets, the Parnassos Literary Society, and the Ionian Academy. Among other diplomatic appointments, he served as Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of Greece to UNESCO. He has translated works by Jorge Luis Borges, Raymond Chandler, John Luther Long, Li Bai, and Galway Kinnell. His poetry collection Details of Worlds received the Lambros Porfyras Prize of the Academy of Athens in 2007. In 2012, he was awarded the rank of Grand Commander of the Order of the Phoenix in recognition of his service in the Greek Diplomatic Corps. In 2014, he received the Poetry Prize of the Petros Charis Foundation of the Academy of Athens for his lifetime body of work. He has also been awarded the Greek State Literary Prize in the category of Testimonies/Memoirs on three occasions: 2000, 2010, and 2016.