Long-listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards
Oh God, there are all so uncertain like a stone with
no mystery or
like the one who rediscovers his lost money in
the wasted time. Travellers bring some flowers
to the hasty funerals in train stations, while
beggars run for a few coins behind ballooned
outfits.
Oh, if I could have my own telephone booth or
cleaner false teeth perhaps many killings could have
been avoided
or perhaps they would had been noticed before
they took place. Everything else will remain unknown
like a sudden ring of the bell from someone who has
already gone away;
a light smell that vanished before you could remember
some steam from your childhood chamomile
that many natural disasters haven’t dispersed yet.
Oh, if I had the power, I could make a hand for each
street beggar
or easy puzzles for the exhausted;
I could create a talkative cemetery that each evening
would narrate old stories to us
or I’d put the bed-sheets out to air like in a shipwreck.
Therefore I am crossed out
like the miracle that makes life more uncertain.
Manolis Aligizakis 