Long-listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards
Griffin Awards
“mother, I’m looking for the house”, I say to her,
“ok then”, she says to me, “put it on top of the side
table and I’ll take care of it”, the stoa was just lit,
the woman with her back in the side street; my brother
didn’t like the sound of bells nor her cheap cotton
pitiful panties, like the poor person’s song; the dog
was crying during the night and wanted to rub himself
on a ghost; the small room vanished in all this, the sign
pendulated in the air, girls with makeup reigned over
the stairway, untie Amalia, fearful of God, handled
the cartons almost perfectly and was often lost without
any trace however without ever reaching the beautiful
dimmed icons; it was a very dark night at Hagia
Petroupolis; the man with the music instrument stopped
outside the café, “you’re hurting me” she said to him
along with a bunch of new stories narrated in low tone
voice in the tailor shops.
Grant me, my Lord, a ripped page in every book and
this way I walked bravely like the corner of a house
at dawn or a woman who, with her breasts, pushes
sleep aside or the hands of the blind man conniving
with the fog.
I could, truly, narrate a lot of stories but I’m thinking
to what end since even the most innocent word is
unfortunately a goodbye repeated a thousand times
just before the accident
and the server spat in the coffee so he could double
his wages;
sleep with ravaged musical notes, a mix up of dead
keys
children’s letters to God thrown carelessly onto the
ground
and the drunk man walks awkwardly not to step
on them.
Manolis Aligizakis 