POEM BY ELENI MARINAKIS

JUGGLER

Hard to fly with poetry

and I didn’t spread

my wings.

I kept fallen leaves

and small rabbits in my living room.

The lonely band played

during the anniversaries

I opened my eyes timidly

fields of olive groves shaded my hat

a swing committed me to the void.

Thus, I grew up with crumbs

I earned my share of food

working the trapeze.

Since then I’m scared of the straight lines

the end of the horizon

the quick fading of the white.

Now I crouch under bridges

of dried up rivers

just to have

my own nothing

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LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER

No, don’t stay my friend. I don’t mean the great

tempests which will pound the windows with

their fists and will claim your surrender; It isn’t

so hard at that time, it’s the fear and resistance

even stubbornness. I talk of the other, the crystal

nights of spring or summer, when you discern

the light clearly chiming in its lucidity, when

the glass ships sail with their lights under

the inexplicable sobs of the stars.

When the imperceptible blow of an insect feather

on your forehead is an irreversible command

to fuse yourself with someone else, in someone

else and there’s no postponement under the exquisite

moonlight that constitutes an integral postponement.

For this, I tell you, it’s difficult to mend your socks

alone, difficult to mend one of your hands with

the other, one of your eyes with the other, one clock

tick with the other, the sound of one wave with

the sound of the another wave.

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Newspaper

He opened the newspaper

under the light of the kitchen

he seek to brighten the news                                

of last night’s muggings,

break ins, murders.

After he took a deep breath

knowing he contributed

in beautifying the world

of this ugly modern city 

he put the coffee pot on

as if he had to go to war again

and needed his morning fix

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