Lunacy

They died defending our freedom

the sentence reads

they fell defending our security

the other insists

lunacy of a nation on drugs

price of freedom the western way

peoples’ minds in overdrive

about God given rights

beyond the reach for most other

earthlings, words paint images

of heroism, sentences filling void

rightful right to subvert people’s

lives, sanctions, economic starvation

pivot

encircling the by chance enemy

lunacy of a nation on drugs

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Tree Stump

Tree stump soaking in lake water

eagle wonders if to or not to dive

and grab the lonely bass

loon calls his faithful mate

as you look at the expanse

of firmament while rain

soaks you like a dead stand

where the osprey swoons to dock

and breezes morph outlines

of shapes in lucent speculum

hooking the bait you toss your line

a delicate splash echoing

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Eros II

Eros appeared as if from a book page

full of advice in the form

of inexplicable riddles

aroma of gardenia rippling

into the stuffy room

          hills as smooth

          as the breast of a nubile

with a coronal on her aroused nipple when

I heard the melodious flute

          and I started

          my rigorous ascent

          straddling the brown soil 

this world I was destined

to receive and observe as if from

         the vantage point

         of regret: deep

         emotions upon which

         to lay my dreams while

the sea breeze could refresh them

and I scattered my sperm in

         bodies moaning

         during the hour of lust

         on purple rough bed-sheets

a man in the arms of a woman

the other side of pleasure

this, this the ultimate miracle

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ΑΝΩΜΑΛΑ ΠΑΘΗ

     Κάποτε θα θυμηθώ κάτι τόσο ωραίο, θα `ναι φθινόπωρο σ’

εκείνη τη μικρή πάροδο με τα υαλοπωλεία, εκεί που, όταν ξεπέσα-

με, ο πατέρας πουλούσε ονειροκρίτες — από τότε δεν ξαναβγήκα απ’

τ’ όνειρο κι όμως κρύωνα, αλλά μπορούσα τουλάχιστο να παραδοθώ

στ’ανώμαλα πάθη μου: τη μελαγχολία ή το συνωστισμό — γιατί,

ας είμαστε ειλικρινείς, εγώ κανένανν ποτέ δεν αγάπησα κι αυτό το

τρυφερό βλέμμα μου ήταν για εντελώς ιδιωτική χρήση

     σαν την αθανασία των ποιητών.

PERVERTED PASSION

     Someday I’ll remember of something so nice; it’ll be

autumn in that narrow side-street with the glass shops where

father sold dream books after he went bankrupt — since then

I never got out of the dream although I was cold; at least I could

fall back onto my perverted passion: melancholy or crowding;

because, let’s be honest, I never loved anybody and this tender

glance of mine was just for personal use

like the immortality of the poets.

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OUR OLD MEN

Every so often we get new boatloads of old men

from Peloponese and Central Hellas and

northern from Trikala, and Macedonia;

thin, heavy boned old men with white moustaches and

         flokati*

they smell of cow dung and soil

evening sheep bleating in their eyes

shadows of plain tree leaves hang off their hair

they talk just a little, sometime at all

yet, from time to time you see then as relatives

of spruces when they raise their eyes from the soil

and see behind our shoulders.

When evening light floods the tents

and the wind entangles its moustache on the thyme bush

when the sky descends from the rocks straddling memory

             with the boot nails of stars

and death saunters silently out of the barbwire

we see them in groups of three or five

like the old days in the powder storage rooms of Messologi.

Then, you don’t know, as they gather in the yard

        of the evening, unshaven, speechless

you can’t tell as they light their lighters

whether it is to light their cigarettes

or to fire up the fuse of the dynamite.

These old men don’t talk.

Their children joined the guerillas.

These old men hid their hearts in the mountain

like a keg of dynamite.

They have a benevolent tree next to their eyes

a strong eagle between their eyebrows

and an angry mule in their hearts;

a mule that can’t take the injustice

and now they stay here in Makronisos

in the opening of the tent, opposite the sea

like lions made of stone in the entrance of the night

with their nails stuck in the stones. They don’t talk.

They stare faraway at the reflection of Athens

they gaze at the Jordan River

holding tightly a stone in their soiled palms

clearly keeping the shells of stars in their eyes

maintaining a powerful silence in the pleats of their hearts

that silence which reigns before the thunderbolt.

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