Long Listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards
https://griffinpoetryprize.com/press/2023-longlist-announcement/
Era of Multiplicity
Sometimes I think of all the people I’ve met:
my childhood comrades, the stones we collected
when it rained and put them under awnings so they
wouldn’t catch a cold;
some friends died, some sank in life, others stepped
on me to walk over,
the dead comrades in battle, on the snow or in the
makeshift bunkers,
those who didn’t return, the deserters, the others who
compromised. I think of my comrades in prison,
the cigarettes we shared,
the loneliness that each of us kept for all our lives
the long glances out of the windows and the tearless
goodbyes of the moribund. People with great souls
or worthless, defenseless or powerful each of them
trusting the other with something one gave to one
or denied. Many words, so many gestures, so many
persons inside of me
that I’m not myself anymore.
And you, my beloved, when you deny me, you leave
a whole saddened world outside your door.
https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/ke4yv6 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763564
Manolis Aligizakis 