Sailors I have bunked with say of me that I'm a thick-skinned roughneck, and depraved. that I despise all women treacherously, that never once have I shacked up with them. They even say I take hashish, cocaine. that some vile, loathsome passion grips my soul, that my whole body is deeply stigmatized with lewd tattoos, disgusting and perverse. They also speak of still more dreadful crimes that are crude myths and fabricated lies; but that which cost me my deepest lethal wound not one man knows: I've told no living soul! For when at twilight tropic nights have fallen and flocks of marabou fly toward the West, something persistent goads me to write down what has become my endless, secret wound. - Nikos Kavvadias from his poem “Marabou”