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Victor’s March

Among decapitated houses

resembling toothless sculls

we marched in their towns

tumbled buildings devastated

by smart bombs outsmarting

thoughtful animals

and we sang marching paeans

band played freedom songs

for the sarcastically smiling youths

who had implanted deep in their souls

the plan for revenge, youths

who in groups of three or four

planned their act of defiance

youths who had dreams

of killing us by the thousands

shoeless youths with grand dreams

that one day they’d become jihadists

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A DOG IN THE NIGHT

I don’t know the roots: the way they stir in the soil before

             sprouting.

Perhaps, later on, they resemble the magnetic shadows of the branches

             of an ancient garden

that stir invisibly in the moist soil, during the twilight, when

             the first star

shivers in its ambivalence, polite and diaphanous as if asking for

              everyone’s forgiveness.

                                                    I have often seen,

of course, exposed roots still green

and tender or totally dry — olive tree roots, cypress roots,

              heath roots

and other roots of smaller plants — as if they coupled and

froze at a glance. Thus frozen, they aren’t concerned with your

glance anymore, your thought, your curiosity

nor for their ancient or current pain. Strange roots, hermetic,

             serene, entwined

in a shape of agony, carelessness or neutral intensity like

those roots we once worked on and created table decors or

cute little statuettes, carefully and persistently taking advantage

of the various knots or veins of the wood or its random

            branching

(we felt truly proud of these) or sometimes

we left them in their natural solid shape,

finished, frozen, indecipherable (called it, our shape)

an entwined scheme that resembled the glance of the one

             observing it,

agreeing with their indisputable shape —

like a sleeping virgin or a stooped dog

or a ship hauled up from the sea floor — a dog better yet.

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The Last Day

It was a cloudy day. No one could decide the wind was blowing softly

‘Not gregali cirocco’ someone said.

Some slender cypresses nailed to the slope and the sea, further,

gray with gleaming pools.

The soldiers presented arms as it started to drizzle.

‘Not gregali cirocco’ was the only decision heard.

Yet we knew that by the next dawn we would be

left with nothing, neither the woman next to us drinking sleep

nor the memory that we were once men

nothing at all by the next dawn.

‘This wind brings to mind spring’ my friend said

as she walked next to me looking afar at ‘the spring

that suddenly came in the winter near the closed sea.

How unexpectedly. Many years passed by. How are we going to die?’

A mourning march saunter around the light drizzle.

How does a man die? Strange that none has thought of it.

And to those who thought of it, it was like a memory from old chronicles

from the era of the Crusades or the naval battle of Salamis.

And yet death is something that occurs; how does a man die?

And yet each earns his own death, his own death,

that doesn’t belong to anybody else

and this game is life.

The light faded in the cloudy day, no one decided anything.

The next dawn we were left with nothing;

everything surrendered even our hands

and our women slaves at the springheads and our children

at the quarries.

My friend, as she walked by my side, sang a song totally disjointed

‘In the spring, in the summer, slaves…’

One could recall old teachers who left us orphans.

A couple went by, talking

‘I’m tired of the dusk, let us go home

let us go home and turn on our light.’

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Shopping

The blonde female cashier looked at me suspiciously

and waited for me to pay my bill; how much

the priest charged you when you had your last

confession, I mentally questioned, while I placed

the two bags on the counter nervously searching

my pockets while the old man behind me smiled,

stench of his breath reminded me of wine mixed

with compassion and the blonde cashier had already

figured I was as poor as a doornail. While carrying on

with my search I said to the old man, ‘it happens to me

every time’, so simple, his smile, the alcohol stench,

the compassion I returned the smile no idea the man

behind me was as deaf as my somber day.

~ I like those who despise everything, for they, alone,

seek to pass over to the other shore.

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What if

What if you stopped staring out

from the blue window

reversed your sight path

and from the balcony

gaped at house’s innards

spied into

secret space of summer sofa

no need

to whisper for pillow

or reddish throw while loving

on the bare tiles

dawn lights a candle

in front of the saint’s lean icon

what if you with void eyes

saw green raw forms

red layered forest 

and in the chiaroscuro of first light

you gazed without gazing?

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POEM BY ANTONIS FOSTIERIS

Voyage of the Hours

There are some nights

sadly futile

and some days

that travel through time

like lazy galleys.

Some southwestern winds

control them

and they go back and forth

aimlessly in the open sea.

There are some empty hours

silent and cold

that dance on the waves

like foolish crafts

and there are some tired seamen

who until they die

dream of reaching a land

that they never reach.

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