Til jer der skal til Creta i år
Før i læser dette, skal jeg lige fortælle at Græske sømænd altid har sagt at når man sejler mod Creta fra en bestemt vinkle, ligner øen "the body of a lying man".
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In the midst of the wine coloured sea lies the land of Crete that came slowly floating towards me while standing on the half deck of the ferry that had so smoothly taken me on board. I was curious. For the evening before this old sailor in the bar at the harbour of Piraeus had told me about the “lying man”.
It was a picturesque bar for its "paintlessness" and the Rebetika music was playing “o ponos tu prezakia” a melancholic song about love, life and hate.
I smoked a joint with Iorgos, as he called him himself, and he told me about the time when he was young, sharp, and attractive and men like him were sailing the waters of the Aegean, not only to work but also to “run”.
The raki flowed richly and I was all ears when he told me about Sylvia, his beautiful black haired fury as he called her, who lived in the backstreets behind the Odos Ikosipende in Heraklion.
They had a rendezvous with Tzuras Stayros the famous Rebetika singer and were already late when they stumbled into this Libyan sailor, drunk as a Malayan, who recognised Sylbia from the brothel that night before.
One word followed the other and before they knew the knives flashed and blood run along their arms. He said he remembered Sylbia yelling “watch out” and in a split second he saw the knife coming but, as he said, the man was too drunk so he knew to avoid the killing steel and turned around for a quarter while he stabbed his Cretan dagger right down through the mans’ guts.
It was an awesome sight, he told me, and it was imprinted in his brains, even so deep that on dark nights when the warm dusty winds blew from Africa he could still see him lying there. His blood flowing towards the Morosini fountain.
He emptied his glass of raki, slowly leant back and said; it was on one of my arrivals from a run, when we sailed towards the the harbour of Heraklion that slowly, as if rising from the red coloured sea, I saw the body of a lying man shaped by the Cretan landscape and lighted by the early morning sun.
I was flabbergasted by his story and after we finished the bottle we sort of walked out of the joint. He convoyed me on board The Knossos while I mumbled something to him that I’d paid the ferry man...
Next thing I can remember was the pounding of the ships motor, a sign to wake up and get to half deck to find out if Iorgos had been too drunk or that that his imagination had carried him away.
I stood there, the wine coloured sea slowly padding the view and the wind combing my disarranged brain cells. I stood there while the landscape slowly revealed the body of a lying man. His head, body and feet pointing towards the blown away clouds and I was absolutely certain that I heard somebody cry, softly like a whisper of the wind.
Ha en god ferie :-)
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In the midst of the wine coloured sea lies the land of Crete that came slowly floating towards me while standing on the half deck of the ferry that had so smoothly taken me on board. I was curious. For the evening before this old sailor in the bar at the harbour of Piraeus had told me about the “lying man”.
It was a picturesque bar for its "paintlessness" and the Rebetika music was playing “o ponos tu prezakia” a melancholic song about love, life and hate.
I smoked a joint with Iorgos, as he called him himself, and he told me about the time when he was young, sharp, and attractive and men like him were sailing the waters of the Aegean, not only to work but also to “run”.
The raki flowed richly and I was all ears when he told me about Sylvia, his beautiful black haired fury as he called her, who lived in the backstreets behind the Odos Ikosipende in Heraklion.
They had a rendezvous with Tzuras Stayros the famous Rebetika singer and were already late when they stumbled into this Libyan sailor, drunk as a Malayan, who recognised Sylbia from the brothel that night before.
One word followed the other and before they knew the knives flashed and blood run along their arms. He said he remembered Sylbia yelling “watch out” and in a split second he saw the knife coming but, as he said, the man was too drunk so he knew to avoid the killing steel and turned around for a quarter while he stabbed his Cretan dagger right down through the mans’ guts.
It was an awesome sight, he told me, and it was imprinted in his brains, even so deep that on dark nights when the warm dusty winds blew from Africa he could still see him lying there. His blood flowing towards the Morosini fountain.
He emptied his glass of raki, slowly leant back and said; it was on one of my arrivals from a run, when we sailed towards the the harbour of Heraklion that slowly, as if rising from the red coloured sea, I saw the body of a lying man shaped by the Cretan landscape and lighted by the early morning sun.
I was flabbergasted by his story and after we finished the bottle we sort of walked out of the joint. He convoyed me on board The Knossos while I mumbled something to him that I’d paid the ferry man...
Next thing I can remember was the pounding of the ships motor, a sign to wake up and get to half deck to find out if Iorgos had been too drunk or that that his imagination had carried him away.
I stood there, the wine coloured sea slowly padding the view and the wind combing my disarranged brain cells. I stood there while the landscape slowly revealed the body of a lying man. His head, body and feet pointing towards the blown away clouds and I was absolutely certain that I heard somebody cry, softly like a whisper of the wind.
Ha en god ferie :-)