Bad Company
Bedridden, marshy colors
words crawl like lizards
amid papers and mouths —
so much disgust for beauty
that pooled in its watery shape
and we constantly find an excuse
not to leave anything behind.
The company of naked,
authentic things is so bad.
Nude
Here in the untidiness of the room
between the dusty books
and the old people’s portraits
between the yes and the no of so many shadows
one band of motionless light
here in this position
where you undressed one night
Poll Star
To let myself be taken
by the love of the compass
myth of day was stitched onto the sky
by the joyous crucifiers
serpents and beasts shed
their height and
the black bad attire of earth and stone
when Dream wakes up and
the silent fields
open wide to the speech of leaves
I defined my steps next to the footprints
of philosophers and craftsmen, next
to ancient priests and priestesses and
I, the loner, guarded wholeness during
the moonlit nights and dark days of my people
expecting their reward on a future day
I stood like a guard against mediocrity
against banality, the second-class attitude, and
I defended the right of my people, and
I declared
I have been my people’s landmark
in the immenseness of my life
where borders don’t exist and only
the eternal ancient beauty stands
I, the loner, alone shall recant
ancient oracles, trying to guide and
console my sorrowful kin from
the Eastern evil that came to our lands
which demanded blind obedience and
rewarded the pious with the afterlife
riches, in today’s modern days when
with a click of a mouse, one speaks
to someone on the other side of the galaxy
mediocrity reigned supreme
Manolis Aligizakis 