LONG LISTED FOR THE 2023 GRIFFIN POETRY AWARDS
Similarities
Rain is a tough game that only the one who lost
can win
lovers also vanish among the other passersby and
the stones children throw in the night again
fall in futility;
nevertheless I was a hero too, since I often stood
dumbfounded or I stood aside
as if to live once again in one word: everything
seemed suspicious like the silent cypresses and
the clocks must feel cold but who can think of that
like auntie Rosa, the spinster, who aged on the stairway
with her sealed vulva like a Sunday holiday while
the bells called the Christians;
when finally someone knocked at the door, three
thousand years had already passed, auntie Rosa had
died at three in the morning however the birds were
asleep we never found which coffin factory was open
during the night;
I stood hesitantly like a crazy man who bought all
the music
or like those poor women who always hold a laughable
umbrella
so they wouldn’t hear the direct insult
almost like a poem is written.
Manolis 