The Last Street Laterna (Greek Barrel Organ)

Some interesting documentaries in Greek

The Last Laterna

The Red Aristotle of Kallikrateia


My own take on the Greek laterna or barrel-organ

"Na ta poume?” Christmas Eve, 1983

Popular Market, Thessaloniki, Greece. 



Christmas Eve, a Saturday;

Children with triangles,

The traditional carol.

“Na ta poume?" " Na ta poume?”



Under the weight of a barrel-organ

From Constantinople

The refugee’s nephew stoops and wobbles,

The relic strapped like a cross to his back;

He staggers along from shop to shop:

“Na ta poume? Na ta poume?”

Not for him to turn the handle,

To sing the tune his uncle grinds:

He thumps and taps the tambourine,

Palms the membrane so it squeals and moans,

Does oriental dances by the butchers’ stalls,

In the coffee-shops and ouzeris;

The old refugee, long since retired,

Like the listening butcher, the backgammon players,

Still inhabits The City, still walks its streets,

Only stops staring into the middle distance,

Lets hand stop winding laterna handle,

When groups of young Thracian gypsies,

Magpie musicians, faster on their feet,

Always eager to steal a trick,

Sneak round in front, beat him to the best-filled shops,

Playing shrill shawms and beating drums, laughing

As they overtake him

To an audience with coins to throw, -

But they warm no hearts, nor steal the show.

Though the cumbersome barrel-organ must stand outside,

Greeks are glad to see it still alive,

Still decorated in the same old way:

The laterna with its Constantinople label.

It may be cumbersome, but it’s melodic;

The folk-songs have been harmonized:

Byzantine pins on a Roman cylinder.

The shawm-players may make much more noise,

Pied-pipers with their wooden oboes piercing through the din

Of the market-dealers’ Christmas cries:

But they can’t negotiate all the notes

Of “Kalyn imeran archontes”.

They have not walked his Calvary,

The Calvary of the Great Idea.



December 24, 1983.