Imaginary Suicides

Imaginary Suicides

They turn the key in the door, take out
their old, well-hidden letters,
read them quietly, then drag
their feet a final time.
Their life has been a tragedy, they say.
God! people’s frightful laughter,
and the tears, the sweat, nostalgia
of the skies, the landscape’s solitude.
They stand there by the window, gazing at
the trees, the children, all of nature,
at the marble-workers hammering away,
the sun that wants to set forever.
It’s over. Here’s the note —
appropriately short, profound, and simple,
full of indifference and forgiveness
for whoever’s going to weep and read it.
They look in the mirror, look at the time,
ask if it’s madness maybe, a mistake.
“It’s over now” they murmur;
deep down, of course, they’re going to put it off.

On July 20, 1928, in Preveza, Kostas Karyotakis ended his

"short life of a sick and aged child"

with a shot that resonated alone under an eucalyptus. Earlier the same day, he had tried unsuccessfully to drown it in the Mediterranean.

Maybe Karyotakis was only able to "Offer a bullet to his youth and to others a few sore poems."