Long Listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards

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

Alcoholism

I, holding a lamp, was going down the stairs; I had

to discover who I was, what I accomplished in the past;

yet, the house was still standing, although we had once

pushed the walls down to make room for the one who

was leaving;

crippled men played my fortune in a card game,

at the far end, Jesus of the drunks was passing each

night along the foggy streetlamps, and I followed

the killer wiping his footprints in the snow, since

by now I knew; the woman, when I tried to hug her

made a light gesture and went into her door

leaving me outside.

       Oh Lord, please allow me to be dead and drunk.

       Only leave the stars which were friendly to me

even in the streets where they were shooting. 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763564

Hyperbole
And I evoked the Great Spirit
when I saw the woman dressed
in the softness of her skin and
when I felt her children’s soles dancing around
my trunk I was a delicate
fairy in the arms of the wind
before the axe of white man took
my life to warm up his loneliness
man who sighed the sadness of absence
and I said
I was never a bearer of negation
only partner of the child’s laughter
innocent curiosity of the open window
I stood amid the giants when
my gigantic wings couldn’t fit
in my room’s enclosure I spread
upon the harmonious melody of the waves
the forest owl crying on my limb

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763424

Bertolt Brecht | Εγκώμιο στη διαλεκτική

The Gift of Imperfection: How Flaws Make Us Whole