Long Listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards
Pointless wandering in the streets, foggy lights
that distort the faces
trying among the crowd to steal a little of the others’
indifference
undressing all the women as if to discover a rose
from her; believing in yourself, like a child who
hides behind the humble chair with the hole
and fools himself that he’s not seen.
My hands are two heavy useless animals since
they don’t hug you
I hate my eyes that don’t reflect your smile anymore
I’d like to pound the streets with my fists, the busses,
trolleys which once led us to our happiness and
to create a deserted city because of your unbearable
absence.
Foggy, sleepy windows of the earthly taverns
where drunkenness, craziness, misfortune and
a piece of the sky’s starlit indifference are reflected.
And always that strange sense of the haunted deserter
who, between the death he escaped and the death
that waits for him,
suddenly, teary, feels the futility of all triumphs
and the resignation of its denial.
No, not from the enemy, comrade, tonight protect
yourself from me.
Manolis Aligizakis 