LONG LISTED FOR THE 2023 GRIFFIN POETRY AWARDS

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HORSE EYED WOMEN

And the three middle aged maids

those who make the erotic beds

who have never been loved

those with

the big teary horse eyes

forgotten in the snow

gathered in the maids room

like an ancient tragic chorus

in front of the propylaea

of a dirty sink

talk with such forbearance

that even the simplest words

from their bitter mouths

suddenly take the deep gleam

of the myths.

And they talk of their earnings

about the rain, dreams, regrets

and about all the different ways

one can cook potatoes

about the murders reported

in the newspapers, about emptying

the sewage tank and erasing death

and about the Resurrection

and all other eternal things. And

they talk and talk wishing to

exist in their words, while the deep

wrinkles in their faces resemble

furrows that time flows through

falling noiselessly

in eternity.

Those women with the tough, dirty

hands purified by the eternal offering.

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Exactly Now

Now that you have nothing to say nothing

to show to emphasize to defend now

that everything is lost (and not just for you) exactly now

you may speak roaming among the

tools of torture turning around with your

small finger the meaningless wheels of

broken clocks or that huge hovering

non-resistant wheel still a bit wet

as they raised it from the sunken ship –

exactly now pulling ropes from the ceiling

listening to the sound of pulleys above you

in vague places like the stars during that night

when we came back from the countryside and in

the marble courtyard they had set in exact order

two rows of black wooden highchairs

and in the middle the king’s golden closed casket

without any flags without the crown and the sword

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On A Ray Of Winter Light

3

My comrades drove me crazy

with theodolites, sextants, compass needles

and telescopes that enlarge things—

better if they were kept away.

Where would such routes bring us?

But the day that commenced then

has not gone by yet

with a flame like a rose in the ravine

and with an airy sea at the feet of God.

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