Long Listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards
Therefore I was sitting in the room all alone suffering
a lot, since in the end I was a worthless man; darkness
was falling and the city groaned like moribund bird under
a bridge; yet, why rain always talks to us of an irreversible
voyage and those people in the streets or at the café, totally
unfamiliar, still remind you of something? Where have you
met them? Perhaps amid the childish ghosts or behind
the curtains during the saddest evenings.
Then, after many years, life changed and I only decided
to spend my winter with old newspapers under my coat
(thus I was kept informed of the current news) and there
were times I wanted to kill myself. Things turned
so beautiful while you could hear the rustle of eternity
coming from afar and even further away father’s cough
coming from the past.
Manolis Aligizakis 