If you want to be called a man - Tasos Livaditis

Anastasios-Panteleimon Livaditis (20 April 1922 to 30 October 1988) was a major Greek poet.

If you want to be called a man
you'll never stop even for a single moment
to fight for peace and justice.
You get out on the street, you scream,
your lips will get bloody from yelling,
your face will get bloody from bullets,
but not a step behind.

Every scream of yours is a rock thrown
on the windows of war mongers.
Every gesture of yours is like
ruining injustice.

And make no mistake:
Don't let yourself been carried away
not for a single moment.
By just relaxing awhile and recalling
your childhood years,
you let thousands of kids slaughtered,
when playing harmlessly in the cities.

If you perish just a moment looking at sunset,
tomorrow people will be dying at the night of war.
If you stop for a moment to dream,
then millions of human dreams
will turn to dust under the bombshells.
You don't have time,no time for yourself,
if you want to be called a man.
If you want to be called a man
you may need to leave your mother,
your beloved woman or your child.

You will not hesitate.
You will decline your lamp and your bread,
you will refuse your night resting
on your door sill, for the rough road
heading towards tomorrow,
you won't be coward or be afraid of nothing.

I know it's beautiful listening to a harmonica,
at night, to gaze on a star and dream,
it's beautiful leaning on the red mouth of your love,
and hearing her say her dreams about the future,
but you must bid farewell to all this and start over,
for you are responsible for all harmonicas of the world,
for all the stars, for all the lamps and for all the dreams,
if you want to be called a man.

If you want to be called a man
you may need to stay in prison for twenty or more years
but you, even in prison you will remember always
Spring, your mother and the world,
you , even within the square metre of your cell,
you will go on walking the road of yours on earth.

And when,in the vast silence of the night,
you will be knocking on your cell wall with your finger,
from the opposite side of the wall,
Spain will be answering to you.
You, even when your years go passing by,
and your hair turns white,you will not get old.
You, even in prison,every morning you will be younger,
for always we'll be starting new fights in the world.

If you want to be called a man,
you must be able of dying any morning,
late at night in isolation you'll write
a long and touchy letter to your mother,
you'll write on the wall,your initials and the date,
and a simple word too: Peace.

As if you had to write down your whole life story.
To be able of dying at any morning,
to be able of standing before the six rifles,
as if you stood before the whole future
to be able at the battery of guns killing you
to hear millions of ordinary people singing
and struggling for peace.

If you want to be called a man.......