Res Communis Omnium (ένα ποίημα για τον Thomas Müntzer)

Lighthouse Keeper

You see, it isn’t inactivity or forgetfulness, on

the contrary; you could call it a responsible isolation,

chosen by you so that the whole of you might exist

in the void.  I don’t know. No, don’t stay, the lighthouse

light is tiring, distant, useless.                  

              Don’t stay.

Sometimes I too shift, in order to get the sense that

I exist, from my motionless position to the multi-

motional position of a ship, of a voyager, of a castaway,

to notice, in the night, the importance of my position seen

from the opposite side when our sets, made of carton paper,

are destroyed by the last thunderbolt and the stage is left

with only the dead electricians under the broken staircase

and cut ropes, when the ships sink and angry people gaze at

the empty ocean, like a gigantic zero, in the wrath

of the elements, trying to hang onto a plank, because,

of course, they can’t get a hold of the lighthouse rays.

https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/q9mkmy?page=1&pageSize=10

COME, OH KING OF THE LACEDAEMONIANS

Kratisikleia didn’t condescend

to let the people see her crying and grieving;

she walked gracefully and silently.

Her collected face didn’t show

any of her sorrow and extreme torment.

But nonetheless for a moment she couldn’t hold it;

and before she boarded the wretched ship for Alexandria,

she took her son to the temple of Poseidon,

and when they were alone she embraced him

and she kissed him, he was “in great pain”, says

Plutarch and “deeply troubled”.

But her strong character struggled;

and after recovering, the admirable woman

said to Kleomenis “Come, oh king

of the Lacedaemonians, when we go out

let no one see us crying

or acting in a manner unworthy of Sparta.

Let this alone remain between us;

as for our fate, let it be as the gods wish it.”

And she boarded the ship going toward what the gods wished.

https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/pv8qkn?page=1&pageSize=10

«Διασπορικοί Διάλογοι» στο αυστραλιανό πολυπολιτισμικό αρχιπέλαγος – Με μεγάλα ονόματα επιστρέφει το Φεστιβάλ Ελλήνων (και μη!) Συγγραφέων

Devout Comparison

Next to each other the cafe the pharmacy the patisserie

and closer by the small flower shop People don’t stop

The women look at themselves in the windows before dusk Behind

the half-built stone fence in the stadium with the mallows

everyone throws their own – paper trays

little medication bottles broken cups glasses

rotten flowers

The old women and the dogs gather there

searching in the pile carefully absentmindedly – they don’t look

at the golden sundown they search like poets for their poem

the most bitter old women the abandoned so happy

with a dry orange peel with a piece of a mirror

with a blue pharmacy tube that has on top of it

the white trace of the homeless slug

and in its empty space the sound of the Larissa train

https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/ke2e82?page=1&pageSize=10

LONG LISTED FOR THE 2023 GRIFFIN POETRY AWARDS

https://griffinpoetryprize.com/press/2023-longlist-announcement/

The Great Sin

     I could have definitely accomplished great things in my life

but I was born so busy, I mean to say (what can I say and who

would understand?) Those days I lived in a shabby hotel near

the train station; trains departed fast like the seasons; during

the night we could hear a gunshot as if from the past and

nostalgia killed me while the pale maid, wrapped in the dark

secret of her wasted life, made the bed and I remembered mother

who always told me there was only one great sin, “my son”

she’d say and I understood because there are just a few words

in the world like the most beautiful stories about us that one may

narrate when no one is around anymore to listen to them.

https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/ke4yv6?page=1&pageSize=10

Μίλτος Σαχτούρης, Δύο ποιήματα

PUBLIC GARDEN

Ah, yes, they all put their secret letters into it: ecstatic

women whose dresses balloon while there is not wind

             at all,

sad ephebes who still don’t know of their beauty,

especially those silent men; and if by chance a child

comes who can’t reach to put the letter in the mailbox,

it lowers its shoulders a little or it kneels —

and you’d think that, one day, it’ll deliver all these letters

               into the hand of God.

I never learned the reason nor its importance

perhaps it happened accidentally. I don’t know. I’m waiting

for the lights to be turned on in the park, as if someone has

              promised it to me.

I don’t ask further. People here, under the big trees, seem

small and insignificant and their passions

even more insignificant, however you can’t measure them

with the trees, they don’t know, they’re measured with

the bread, their rent, and truly, with the small hole

a bullet makes, from where all their life can be emptied —

              of course, it can. Time has passed.

https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/5pnz8y?page=1&pageSize=10

“El Greco”

Cherubs

Your eyes get immersed in the aura

of a Cretan and your masterpieces

not semblances of men or

of women but reflections

of angels in a mirror.

Just idols of cherubs

archangels and seraphs with

wings which open and close

like a mysterious fan

in front of the splendor

of a sublime likeness and

a stalactite of your love

descends to moisten all

dryness, to quench all thirst.

Your love, oh great Cretan, for

man, for life, for God.

Here the line between

the spirit and flesh becomes

so indistinguishable

so tragically vague

here the aura of man

and the shadow of god

fuse into a ripple of gray air

into the sadness of a beacon

tears freely cascade and

overwhelm the afternoon heat

love songs unheard off before

tears that become absolution

of a thunderous encounter

between a Giant and a man

who has dared Death many a time

a man who seeks to reach higher.

https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/y26q9n?page=1&pageSize=10

Poem by Maria Polydouris

FOR KARIOTAKIS 

The young men who arrived to the deserted island with you

one night counted themselves and found you missing.

They looked each other in the eyes and no wonder

they shook their heads in sadness. 

They recalled many nights that from your loneliness

a sign of fire you would send and they knew

the sad welcome of the abyss lighting the roads

and for this they stayed in their familiar places 

they grieved, as if fatefully and sorrowfully

they hanged from the “rock” of danger

and when you said goodbye, you, the forever desperate

they sang a few verses of a traditional dirge. 

The young men arrive to the island every year

and they search for the elegy of life in your vacant spot.

They maintain two tears in their eyes for you and

for the new Epoch you have established. 

https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/vznd2p?page=1&pageSize=10