Nikos Engonopoulos – Poems

Glorifying Hymn For the Women we Love
the women we love are like pomegranates
they come and find us
during the night
when it rains
they erase our loneliness with their breasts
they dive deep in our hair
and decorate it
like tears
like gleaming shores
like pomegranates
the women we love are swans
their parks
live only in our hearts
their feathers are
the feathers of angels
their statues are our bodies
the beautiful tree lines are the same
as they are on the tips of their toes
erect
they come near us
as if swans kiss us
on our eyes
the women we love are lakes
among their reads
their fiery lips whistle
our beautiful birds swim in their waters
and then
when they fly away

https://draft2digital.com/book/3744799

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763734

Katerina Anghelaki Rooke – Selected Poems

Where I Was Born one Could Lose everything
In the place I was born one could
lose everything.
Time eats the words
and from inside the words
the ravaged eyes are spent
even the kisses
and the need to suffer.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562965

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763521

Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume IV

Orestes

Unprepared, yes — I can’t do it; I lack that analogy,
suitable to the landscape, to the hour, to things and
events — no, it’s not faint-heartedness — unprepared
before the front step of the deed, totally unprepared
before the goal others have set for me. Why others
control our fate a little? Why they impose it on us and
we accept it?
How can they weave our whole year with just a few
threads of our moments, usually a rough, dark weaving,
thrown over us like a sack covering us from top to bottom,
covering all our face and hands, in which we’ve entrusted
a knife — completely unfamiliar — which lights all the
around landscape, not ours — I know this, not ours. And
how our fate happens to accept this, while it pulls away
and observes us and our strange fate, as if foreign to us,
mute, austere, uninvolved, resigned, not even with
the expression of a magnanimity or stoicism, without
even disappearing, without dying, we’ll remain a
plaything of an alienated fate, not doubting or split
in two. There she is, sleepy — with one of her eyes closed
and the other dilated letting us see that she observes us
and discerns our endless vibrating without approving
nor disapproving it.
Two different pulls correspond to each of our two legs,
one distances itself more and more from the other
with wide strides to the point of dismemberment; and
the head is a knot that holds together the divided body
while, I believe, legs are made to move one at a time,
in the same rhythm, to the same direction, down to
the plain, next to a bunch of grapes, up to the far away
rosy horizon, transferring our body in one piece — or
were we perhaps made for that great, unearthly stride
over the horrible precipice, over the graves and ours?
I don’t know.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763815

Wheat Ears

Athena II
Perplexed Athena gazed at the sea
as if to say the balance of the world
was based on it: fresh, liberal
fountain blessed by the spring
like the palms
of the beardless poet
reverently turned inwards
immense sea bearing gifts to
my endless wandering when
I discovered seeded fields
orchards with lemon trees
and grapevines ready
for the harvest
stars gracing rosy-cheeks
blue domes of temples
each with different armies of
words and dreamy images
hopeless this misery
that I couldn’t escape
unless again I evoke Her spirit
logistical algorithm
Her divine intervention
a direction I was meant
to follow to the bitter end
when finally in the next room
they were already enjoying
the opened bottle of bubbly

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BKHW4B4S

Poodie James

excerpt

Spanger stepped back.
“If there’s evidence to support your suspicion, we’ll decide what
steps to take. The law mentions probable cause.”
Torgerson’s face darkened.
“I think, Mr. Police Chief, that when you take a closer look at
those tracks and that wreck that killed a man, you’ll find probable
cause to hold those two for a while. Now, why don’t you just have
some of your men round them up?”
“And charge them with what?”
“Suspected criminal activity. Material witnesses to a wrongful
death. Mopery. What do I care? Just get them in jail. The town’ll
be a better place with them off the street.”
“Mr. Mayor,” Spanger said. “We ought to discuss this with the
city attorney. It could lead to a lot of legal trouble. You can’t just
invent charges and lock people up.”
“Oh, those two don’t strike me as jailhouse lawyers, Darwin.
Don’t worry about that. Hell, one of ’em can’t even speak.”
“Mr. Mayor,” Spanger said, “I won’t help you use this train
wreck to make Poodie James and the hobos part of your election
campaign.”
Torgerson smiled and turned away from the wreck toward his
police chief. His eyes are the color of dirty ice, Spanger thought.
“Why, Darwin, I haven’t even decided to run again. You just go
ahead and investigate. You’ll find enough to lead you to your duty.
I expect you to protect the citizens of this town.”
Torgerson turned and strode down the tracks toward 13th
Street. Spanger watched until the mayor got into his big blue
Packard and drove away.
Albert Swan, the city attorney, cleared his throat and raised his fingers
to smooth his tie. As he spoke, he looked past the police chief.
Spanger turned to see if someone had entered the office. They
were alone.
“Darwin,” Swan said, “we don’t much get into criminal matters
in this office. It’s mostly city business, you know.”

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562868

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08W7SHCMV

Kariotakis-Polydouri, The Tragic Love Story

Tribute
Forehead of silver and your blue
eyes reflected beautifully
as you opened the piano
two fresh roses shivered in the vase
like flowers your temples bloomed.
Your hands fought and won
against the keys that retrieved
creating notes, the melody reward.
We listened. And the emotions-slaves
regained their freedom.
Years have gone, well I don’t remember,
though I believe that you had also sung
unless the nightingales sang
whether silent or talking your lips are fountain
when my years are but tired deer.
Butterflies will always flutter
leaving the pollen on the hand
goodbye only but a rustle, your hand as silk
when you vanished; butterflies
will always fly out through the window.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562951

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763459

Hours of the Stars

Euroclydon*
We travel on a Roman galley
convicts and merchants and legionaries
the island of Pasiphae to our right and
straight ahead toward the sundown the eternal city
each of us with a bag of belongings
we carry a gift for our fiancée
hope and concern and overused hulls
silk and wedding gold for the marketplace
half way quite unexpectedly the tempest started
the typhoid wind from the Numibia sands
we tossed all our belongings into the sea
we wished just to be saved
but Euroclydon the great river with its opposite currents
isn’t appeased by supplications and cries
luckily we had amongst us one who by chance
made sure we remembered of the bread

Euroclydon – Northeastern wind

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763408

Savages and Beasts

excerpt

perhaps closer than people thought, same as the change Anton
felt might perk up between the archons of this school and the
children of the savages, a change that perhaps might lead to a
dialogue between the two sides. Yet a doubt lurked deep in his
heart that what he hoped for would be proven to be just that.
He arrived at the school. He greeted Sister Gladys at her
desk. The spectacled nun graced him with a broad smile; the
nun knew that this young man was her insurance, her security,
this young man would make it impossible for her lover, Father
Jerome, to fool around, something her mind relished and seeing
here in front of her this young man she felt as if she had to get up
and hug him: to thank him for being here to protect her interest.
Yet she didn’t get up, she didn’t say anything more than what she
had to, and Anton walked away towards his submerged kingdom.
His mind recalled the beautiful body he held in his arms yesterday
and his attitude suddenly sweetened to the point that a broad
smile spread on his face.
“Mary, what would she be doing this early in the morning?”
He thought to himself and his mind ran to her sweet lips
which were whispering her morning prayer before she would get
ready to go to her daily responsibilities. The day was excellent,
such were her spirits, such was the attitude of the sun up in the
firmament, and such was the emotion of the north wind that
was blasting the old oaks and the chestnuts trees outside in the
School grounds.
Time passed. Anton heard the bell that announced the
first recess. Kids got out of their classes; Sister Anna and Father
Peter were on duty out in the yard. He walked up and taking
Mary from her office they too walked outside. There they walked
slowly towards the big oak on the eastern side of the yard. Father
Peter and Sister Anna saw them but didn’t care to disturb them;

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763602

Tasos Livaditis – Poems, Volume II

Long-listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards

OR WHEN, suddenly, one turns and looks at you as if you
both came to the world for this reason; you don’t talk to
each other however his glance again wonders towards the
unanswerable from which the holy grace was painfully given
to you and other times when you mould a pitcher in your
wheel or you write a word in the sand separation already
stands between you two and we now know where the man
who gets up to leave will finally go, only that
he started before us, like the mothers who, if darkness
comes, it’s because they were so tired and fell asleep
for a while.

https://draft2digital.com/book/4051627

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

Orange

Memory Pleats
Since many forgotten things
lurked in the pleats of memory
we all knew the meaning of
the forbidden fruit and
we followed a blind man
as if we needed an errorless guide
at the start of the twenty-first century
and the man with the severed arm
hid behind the robin’s song
as if to decipher our thoughts
we often sat by our eastern balcony
to enjoy the fresh breeze
of the August evening
as it was obvious that we couldn’t
fool the children any longer

https://draft2digital.com/book/3746001

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763750