POEM BY PHAIDON THEOFILOU

LIKE A FAIRY

Like a fairy

I enter the cane fields

reaching to their roots

feeling the caress of moist and warmth

I charge to the forests like a juvenile

to welcome the rain

with green wholeness

I touch seams of ore in the earth

which reflect and declare

their ethereal colors in my eyes.

Yes, like the color the eyes of men reflect

when the soul stays still

and the glance falls in the void.

I pass my appearance

which resembles a pointing needle

among the foliage of the trees

tasty craftiness of chlorophyll. 

I go to the hothouse of your fears looking in them

you’re afraid of your fear and what gnaws you.

Yet when drinking with your friends you leave them to forgetfulness

but your fears come back more demanding

since you don’t have the courage to face them.

Often you replace the faces of your fear

with hatred, ingratitude, subversion of others;

thus you also change.

I stand before the miraculous work of bees, that don’t know

they transform aesthetics into ambrosia with their stand

they transcend a great deed into a simple expected act.

Then, I hold my self-respect up high

like a precious possession:

my respect for the cat

which when it feels its time has come

leaves everyone behind

and bestows its body

into a schism of the earth.

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Chatty Old Woman

Some encounters are strange, at night, with ghostly

faces, men who hide something behind their prophet’s

beards or they ask you for a match though they don’t

accept a cigarette and thin women who stop you for

a question or they beg you not to carry on insisting

that they have some information or alcoholic children

while they move their hands with difficulty like in

           dreams

therefore struggling from nicotine I rang the bell, a

pair of stupid slippers dragged along the hallway and

an old man opened with a cap in the shape of a sponge,

“what you want?” He asks me, “I?” I said to him. “You

called me, usually this time they all call me”, “who is it?”

An old woman was heard from inside “a crazy man”

the old man said; I pushed  him, I started to search,

prehistoric scene full of dust, “don’t search” he said to me,

“she’s dead”, “then why she talks to me?” I asked, “she was

always chatty like that”, “don’t listen to him” the old woman

yelled  “He’s the dead one since he still hides his money”

“God they’ll drive me crazy”, I thought and raising the axe

I started pounding the wretched sofa which hid the quiet

             part of the wall from me.

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Nakedness

I don’t want to hear anything, he says, look

I shut my ears, I watch your lips, I can’t tell

which word they form. The zero isn’t a circle,

it’s a square like the table. The unheard, truly,

is fleshy and red. My ears turn red because

of what I don’t hear. Now whatever I hear

is red. I will never speak again.

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POEM BY MARIA POLYDOURIS

YOU WON’T RETURN

You won’t return anymore to grace me with

something from the gifts the beautiful life

has graced you: a flower perhaps? The life

that fills your heart and body with such beauty.

You won’t return anymore to take my hands

that froze as if an enemy’s hands?

Joined with yours, calm pair of hands

that need doesn’t come near them any longer.

You won’t return! And the days pass by slowly

and as you go away my familiar fate

comes close to me, alone

for so long with the secret grief.

Don’t you ever think that perhaps, truly,

in sad moment I’ll direct myself

to the fateful end that awaits me

and never to return? 

‘Karyotakis-Polydouri: The Tragic Love Story’ poetry translated by Manolis Aligizakis

LONG LISTED FOR THE 2023 GRIFFIN POETRY AWARDS

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Partition

In time I finally stopped keeping notes guessing that

the value of a masterpiece must be elsewhere, while

the stupid doctor insisted “you’ll enjoy some change”

as if fame couldn’t pass by our street; yet the train

whistles at night took me to a voyage all over the room

and then the ticket inspector came and asked me about

my ticket, “which ticket asshole, I’m the one with one

testicle” and I of course meant that they threw me out

along with all the other good heroes of the novel; I

therefore thought of going to say goodbye to my uncles

because who can tell me that I’m truly who I am (and

I’m surprised that no one admired such a version) or

I’m the one who placed a small napkin on my lap

although I never ate anything but that spot on the door;

when finally as you might have guessed it was

a melancholic October and I entered the first

second hand store and I bought a partition.

Thus my warmth and good manners remained

          exemplary.

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Tenderness

Your fingers

tenderly entangled

with mine

melodious harmony

of ten stars

whispering

I love you

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POEM BY PAULINA PAMPOUDIS

THIRD DAY

The third day He gave names

to the winds

and the birds shivered

in the roots of their feathers

the dry soil buzzed

many first tried miracles

the infatuated grasses

danced in the plain

two small puffy clouds

touched, then separated

ascending slowly in the light

God danced on them

until He was dismembered

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