Long Listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards
https://griffinpoetryprize.com/press/2023-longlist-announcement/
Appearances Can Fool You
“I’m the key master” he was saying and standing
in the middle of the hall he gesticulated as if he was
opening locked safes; he then listened to the passing
trains, he gesticulated again, he signaled, twenty
years in the asylum even the deranged men laughed
at him; “you’re nothing” they said to him and he cried.
One evening I went close to him, “I know” I said,
“you’re the key master”; he smiled and said, “no, I do
this for the others; I’m a scientist, a doctor, as my mother
wished me to become.”
Manolis Aligizakis 