Long Hours
Even the longest hours come to an end;
Then we exchange addresses hastily,
knowing that we’ll never meet again.
Do we become smaller in our daily life
or do we assume our natural dimensions?
However, our manly brotherhood can’t fit
in our daily life, and for this reason
we start new encounters again.
Return
In reality, I knew that suddenly something unforeseen would have cancelled everything, and when I heard them talking,
I felt as if I hadn’t grown at all, so indifferent they were (and I had to protect that and there wasn’t any safe place anywhere,
and as I walked into the street I, as desolate as ever, stretched my arm to no one because who knows whether
someone would be there waiting; then the doorbell rang, “Why
You returned?” I asked him; he was an old childhood friend. “I still
have something to finish,” he said, and all night long I heard him
sobbing in the next room because he had died very young and
he had returned to cry so his purpose on earth could be fulfilled.
Eros
And Eros hit my forehead softly
fingers traversed lines
and secrets that remained
hidden in my mind: bodies
explored vanity in
the forever hungry mirror
which embraced our two idols
sweet fervor
erotic tenderness
as my hand designed
elliptical lines and hilltops
sometimes a smooth climb
other times rugged
like conflagrated emotions
of my family’s roots
and the inherited pain
has followed me for eons
in places as red as blood
and other plains as black
as Ariadne’s yarn
in the labyrinth of thoughts
millions of pine needles
marvellous secret body caves
into which I entered
like a misty cape
man, and his phallus,
glorious patron of exultation
Crow
Eyes of the sky dry salt pans
cried for forty days and
forty nights
after the captivity in the sand
the chase on the bone place
voice hidden in the scorpion’s path and
hair turned into serpents
after the killing and the price paid
on the left shoulder of regret
the first guilt had already perched
At Least
The statues, he said, die if you don’t look at them.
I’ve seen them numerous times fall with half-closed eyes.
They wait to see if anyone can look at them; they get up
again. Perhaps for this reason stores in the central
streets, inside and outside, or the neighbourhood tiny shops
are full of small, large, and any size mirrors. Hanging off
the walls, they vaguely shine, as if indifferently, in secret
anticipation: they mirror the bakery chimney, one loquat
tree, two women, and the cart of the small flower shop with
the empty clay flowerpots.
Late in the evening, around eight o’clock, when the stores
close, the mirrors empty at once. Each of them, clerk or
store owner, or customer, takes one mirror and gets into
his room while out in the streets, the windless vigil already
thickens.
III
In the agora’s anonymity your face vanishes behind myriad
idols floating in the blind mirror people reflecting forest
your dream seeping out amid tree trunks
your goal of creating a new world falls into foggy memory
sun-tanned skin fades like boreal winter
then burns white as great hand pushes crowd through
chlorination process masses popping out from
end of the monotonous machine whitewash dressed and
holding sweetest energy in their hearts
like grains of sugar you stand among millions of others
in a spoon of the celestial master who laughs at the commotion
winking his left eye in this anonymity of the agora your
energy mingles with the energy of others and once you fall
deep into the mouth of a hungry abyss leading
to an insatiable stomach of ever-hungry Hades
you can only remember green leaves and turtles
beautiful legs and their cosmogonic join where pleasures
and goals funnel you can have only memories of places
you traveled or didn’t from fear of flight on planes
in this anonymity of the crowd you are pushed downward
becoming soluble matter grand master digests with help of`
bile turning you into a green-yellow ornament
sometimes your energy creates future poems
other times you are just farted out with pressure releasing
agony foulness complementing hyacinths
in this impersonal agora you are salami at the master’s lunch
and your goal to create a new world becomes his burp
at the end of it all intensifying the fragrance of lilac blooms
seventeen
With all this ardour
you gained
because of the compression
in this zone
so much you run
to spread
to foreign lands
and a piece of wood
you threw into the water
so, you can sail
II
the beautiful Kore
we loved,
oh, mister,
was like
a cyclamen
in her death
bed
let us dust off our muddy pants
let us stir the harps of artesian wells
let us drive the gypsies to the sea
let us harvest the breasts
of our most beautiful
girls
excerpt
…that he was soon at the end of the climb. He found the courage to go
faster, but he was still blind. Suddenly, his face got lit by this phenomenal
light emanating from somewhere in front of him. He felt
dazzled: was it someone there, or was he alone as always? The strong
light was still here in front of his eyes, and a heavenly cry suddenly
came out of his mouth, a scream, a voice he couldn’t agree was his,
yet he heard it as from the depth of his essence.
“Why? Why?”
A smile appeared in front of his eyes, a smile. Whose smile
was it? Hermes found himself sitting alone again at his small table,
looking outside his window. His neglected book seemed to be complaining
to him. Yet he didn’t feel like studying anymore. He leaned
back on his chair, still wondering what just happened. The phone
rang, and it was Giovanna on the other end.
“Hi Hermes. How are you?”
“I’m okay. What’s up?”
“Want me to come over?”
“Sure, come along.”
Ten minutes later, she was in his room. She looked very pretty
in her mini-skirt and a dark green blouse. He admired her looks,
which she thoroughly enjoyed. She hugged him, and their lips
locked. A few minutes later, they lay naked on his bed, where all the
books had been earlier. She climbed on top of him, giving him all she
knew to make both happy.
A little later, when both were satisfied, she said, “You have
already started your thesis?”
“Yeah, I have to get it going slowly.” She knew very well why he
was in such a hurry; he had told her many times, yet she always hoped
that he would change his mind at some point, even if that happened
on his last day here. She got up, a bit upset.
“I’m going to have a shower.”
He followed her to the bathroom, and they hopped under the
warm stream of water. He rubbed her gently. Slowly, her arousal
became obvious, as was his.
Golden River
My glance runs free, vanishes
through the waves and clouds up high
only to stop where the sky
touches the sea and talks
the asleep shore blows the breeze lightly
a bird turns white the sky becomes black
the night arrives only the west turns rosy
the day resembles a smiling corpse
and when the west’s joy departs
we’ll gaze at the moon in our lake
creating a wide river of gold
that time, my fresh love, I’ll say to you
deep in our hearts, sea filled with passion,
this golden river is our Love
