TASOS MAKRATOS Poet, Philologist – Researcher (University of Athens)

Tasos Makratos was born in Piraeus. He studied Philology and Philosophy in the University of Athens and  Mechanic - Electrical Engineer in the Athens University of Technology (Metsovion). Between the years 1985 - 1986 he did post-graduate studies of Modern Greek and Byzantine Literature in the University of Sorbonne, Paris. Today, alongside his literary occupation, as a Philologist - Researcher, he is doing research into texts of Modern Greek, Byzantine and French Medieval Literature (Department of Philosophy, University of Athens).

He has been writing poetry since a very young age. Here are some of his published titles: “THE RESPONSIBLE” and “THE PROLETARIAN” (1977), “28 POETS” (Collective publication, 1980) “MYSTICAL LOVES”: volume I «EROTIAZEIN» (1984), vol. ΙΙ «BELOVED DAYS» (1984), vol. ΙΙΙ «THE PAST CONTINUOUS OF LOVE» (2008), vol. IV “VARIATIONS IN AN ENDLESS WE” (2008), “DIALOGUE WITH DIONYSSIOS SOLOMOS AND LIBERTY. HYMN TO MESOLONGHI” (2011). In the process of being published: «TIME IN THE EXTREME», vol. Ι & ΙΙ

In 1977, his poem «Peaceful Sperm» is awarded a prize in the literary contest “Young Generation 1977”. In 1996 he is awarded the 1^st prize of poetry by the Accademia Internationale di  Propaganda Culturale of Rome for his poem «Everlasting Praise».

He is a board member of the Hellenic Literary Society.

Archaic Smiles

The light of the body is the eye:

if therefore  thine eye be single,

thy whole body shall be full of light (*)

So - you reminded me - full of light

did we throw our body as fodder of time

not of course in order to resist

its character its greed

only we settled in him somehow consubstantial

carried away but keeping our obsessions intact

10. for words and verses and eternities

and the entire beauty of our hours

created now an infinite present

as the time stops in Eros

as Eros abolishes his seasons ...

My Glaphyra, enigmatic, surrounded by me,

do lay our Poetry onto our soft sheets

so that every night She shall anoint our wounds

and do let our warm dreams

wander among the taste of the stars

20. and the olive groves the vineyards below

in the background the sea swaying the moon ...

Thus did I sing to you

thus did I somehow heal the grammar of our eyes

— the evident were invisible

the inconceivable were engaged on our arm

and we, firm learners

in our expectations —

we unfailingly measured our endurance

while the beauty so flexible

30. appeared as a rare marching song

captured by our Eros

and we were disguised

into animals and colourful birds

we stood still

with our archaic smile settling down

in our common fate ...

(*)  Matthew 6, 22.

TASOS MAKRATOS

e-mail: amakratosmakropoulos@hotmail.com