Crone Mora

Γριά Μώρα
Translated from the Greek by Yannis Goumas

Crone Mora comes in your sleep.
Comes on your chest.
She laughs faceless.  Without laughing.
She deceives your tongue.
Scream.  Open your mouth.  Empty.
She usurps your voice.
Keep your eyes open.  In the dark.
Grey cloud.  Grey crone.
Your eyes are shut.
Get up.  Hold on to your bed.
Quadruped is your bed.
Bedroom’s rodent.  Grey.
Get up.  Prop yourself against the walls.  The walls are curving.
A grey cloud spreads on the floor.
Bed’s treading.
The bed touches the floor.
The bed touches the walls.

Get up.  Crawl on all fours.
Crone Mora is in your bedroom.
She comes bodiless.
Your mouth is empty.
She crawls on you.
She steps on you that you shan’t move.
Keep your eyes open in the dark.
Darkness seeps through the fissures.
Darkness enters your body.

Get up.  Make for the light.  There’s no light.
The switch won’t light the lamp.
The switch, a mature grey caterpillar, is crawling on the walls.
It has nibbled the colour.
It scores the walls and darkness enters.
The walls curve in the dark.
On you, Crone Mora is a grey moth.
She’s nibbled the light and sat on you.
She steps on you that you shan’t move.
She’s nibbled your voice.

Get up.  Make for the door.  Keep your eyes open.
The door won’t open.  There’s no doorknob.
The doorknob, a grey predatory myriapod, is running on the floor.
A grey cloud spreads on the floor.
The door is small.  Small mouth with rodent incisors.
Darkness enters through the keyhole.
Crone Mora is growing on you.

Get up.  Without legs.  Without arms.
A myriapod, crawl to the window.
There’s no window.  You don’t know where it is.
The window has grown and left.
It flew in the night.  Lepidopteron.
Crone Mora nailed the door.
Nailed the window.
Nailed the darkness.
Nailed you to your bed.
Nailed you to your body.
A predatory myriapod on you.  A mature caterpillar on you.
Your bed on you.  Darkness in your mouth.
Crown Mora nailed your bedroom
to the night.
Grey moth.  Crown Mora in the keyhole.
She sees you faceless.
She is coming.  Give a shout.  Get up.  Crawl.  Wake up. 

Crone, tell me your years.
Are they a hundred?  A thousand?
Are they one hundred short breaths of mine?
One thousand eggs that you left in my mind?
Crone, tell me your name.
Is it a vivid darkness?
Is it a dark animal growing
in the bedroom that’s getting smaller,
on the bed it steps on and goes?
Crone grunting without breathing on me
who squeezes my body without a body.
Olden crone.
Crone on walls stepping on my bed.
On my bed stepping on the walls.
On my tongue that got stuck in my throat.

One hand on the right.  One hand on the left.
The walls are near.  To sustain myself.  To get up.
To hold up on the right.  Hold up on the left.
The walls on top of me.  My bed on the walls.
I must get up.  Crawl on all fours.
To find my tongue.
To groan mo, to shiver ra.  Old mo.  Old ra.
The walls on my bed.
I must crawl.
Slain in the dark is my tongue in the throat.
A voice on the right.  A voice on the left.
To shout at my voice.
I’ve eaten my voice.
A hundred small voices are stuck in my throat
a hundred short breaths.
Crone Mora comes in my sleep.

Where is my tongue?  Where is my voice?
My tongue goes down my throat
My voice chokes in my stomach.
Darkness emerges from my mouth.
My mouth is chock-full of darkness.
Darkness is chock-full of my voice.
Crone Mora is a hundred mouths.
Crone Mora is a thousand eyes.
On me.  A hand on the right.  A hand on the left.
She gets hold of the walls and curves them over me.
Holding on to the dark.
Holding on to my body.
Darkness in my mouth.  My tongue slain.
I must get up.  I must crawl.

I’m not coming.  I’m in your sleep.
I’ve no name.  I’m a crone.
I’ve no body.  I’m old mo.
I’ve no face.  I’m old ra.
Crone Mora for ages now
grunting darkness in your sleep
for years I’ve been searching for slain voices
I squeeze tongues in the dark
for years I’ve been squeezing time on the bed
the walls on the night.
Here in the night I raise darkness.
Don’t get up.  I drag the bedroom at night.  Don’t crawl.

You don’t wake up from an awaking; you don’t fall from one sleep to another.

Crone Mora comes in your awaking.
She sees you from your sleep.
Give a shout.  Get up.  Make your way.  Wake up.
Yórgos Panayotídis