DON'T GO TO KYRENIA

'Don't go to Kyrenia', they said,
but if you do, have no children. 
hundreds of times they said it,
your fault if you paid no attention. 

It was the same boat that docked,
you thought the sail was satin, it was a shroud.
They unloaded the songs to the port
but they were not the songs of our love
the amphoras were filled with sea-blood
and those who drank from them were poisoned,
but if they didn't drink, they'd die of the plague,
and if they didn't die, they'd go to war.

The lights at the discotheque daze,
let them daze whether we die or not
we spin in slices of multicolour shadows,
let the lights daze, daze...

I don't know what tremor of war
has petrified Kyrenia but left her eyes wide open,
in a confusion of who's gone away
who's come back,
the loved ones who have sailed away,
and the dead
and the dead have sent back.
Kyrenia will be machine-gunned if she moves,
and if she doesn't, she will still be bombed by planes.

Love will move, even if we won't
don't water the garden they said
but if you do, don't dig,
there'll soon be a war, anyway.

If we'll strip down to soldiers in the Fort,
whether the geraniums burst open or not, in a tumult of noises,
or not bloom at all, around the Loveterranean, our sea. 
If we light a fire and dance,
if we dance in the submarine-caves
with LSD and videos and revolvers, we'll dance,
whoever doesn't dance will lose his mind
and who doesn't lose his mind will drown in salt.

Don't go to Kyrenia they said,
the lights at the discotheque, let them daze
there'll soon be a war, anyway,
let the lights daze, daze...