SHAPE OF ABSENCE  XXV

The distance lengthened between hands. People in love

don’t join hands anymore, not to reveal their lonely frost,

               afraid that

the cry of absence might be heard from their joined hands.

               They remain like that

as if in a dark tunnel gazing the opposite time

or the distant, vacant tables

that have changed shape and place to a solid silence.

               Only

the alarm clock on the night table,

like the eye of an adult that has grown before its time,

shows a familiar time, unapproachable, already outdated;

and slowly-slowly death withers

like a unused forgiveness. 

POEM BY IOULITA ILIOPOULOS

CITY OF MUSIC

Small, multicolored musical squares

cobblestoned, where you step and

new sounds break up in the air

one night wearing a petticoat

and with a green dome on its hair

the night that turned into dawn

a band of light you passed over me

and closing my eyes as if feathers

a yellow night that turns into salinity

the river drop by drop

persistently persistent little lights like kisses

in her tiny hands as if of a marionette

a crypt, a fan, a voice

climbing slowly up in the air

and the elongated verdure on the ground

caresses as if silence, in a huge café where

the sounds go around in circles.

Trays with small glasses and sweets, gold signs

—which truth do the clocks count? —

music, you say.

A pink hydrangea and through the open window

a big heater made of porcelain and in very small letters

Salzburg of the nineteen hundred forever

Scarecrow

He knew our peculiar desire for suffering, He knew

we preferred the sighs of defeated and those left

by the birds in their morning flight, though our soft

eardrums were unable to capture the thunderbolt’s

rapture, we still wanted to lie next to the woman’s

breast, close enough to feel her pain, close enough

to taste salinity of her skin and He, alone, encompassed

the earth seen by our irises His primal goal to transcend

our desires once and for all, while we still kneeled

before the scarecrow, jet-black eyes and straw hair

on his head that moved from side to side, myths upon

which we had based our existence.

WAR CALENDAR

13^th DAY or ON LAND NOW

The air fights descend to the ground

and death returns to earth

the place of its origin.

Bright flashes accompanied him

the only luxury left to the corpses.

Truly, how evil has changed direction!

The actions of death commenced down

in the mud, in the hooves of the animals

the boots, the bog, then he climbed

to the black clouds and into the innocent souls.

And now in the desert

as I imagine it with innumerable

rosy sandy breasts

that breath as they near death

secretive body

with the dark oasis hidden here and there

uncommitted, like spectator of perdition

that became a parachutist to conquered her.

Now from top to bottom

the progress of bloody flesh;

the sky, the fiery past

will be forgotten

and good will be established on earth

it will be buried deep, very deep in memory.

Mathios Paskalis Among the Roses

I’ve been smoking steadily since morning

if I stop the roses will embrace me

with thorns and fallen petals they will choke me

they grow crookedly, all of them with the same rose color

they stare; they wait to see someone; no one goes by

behind the smoke of my pipe I watch them

being scentless over a weary stem

in the other life a woman told me ‘you can touch this hand

and this rose is yours it’s yours you can take it

now or later, whenever you like’

I walk down the steps smoking still,

the roses walk down with me, excitedly

and in their manner they have something of the voice

at the root of a scream, there where the man

starts shouting ‘mother’ or ‘help’

or the small white words of love.

It’s a small garden full of roses

a few square meters descending with me

as I go down the steps, without sky;

and her aunt would tell her ‘Antigone you forgot your exercises today

at your age I never wore a corset, not in my time’.

Her aunt was of pitiful stature with veins in relief

many wrinkles around her ears an almost dead nose

but her words were always full of wisdom.

I saw her one day touching Antigone’s breast

like a small child stealing an apple.

Perhaps I’ll meet that woman now as I walk down?

When I left she said to me ‘who knows when we’ll meet again’

and then I read about her death in old newspapers

about Antigone’s marriage and Antigone’s daughter’s marriage

the steps down and my smoking without end

that leaves on my lips the taste of a haunted ship

with a mermaid crucified to the wheel while she was still beautiful.

Loneliness

And I showed Zeus my first verse

maze-like delicate quatrain

eyes that became epicenter

bell that chimed its aloofness

when flat-footed I stepped into

the fresh and shallow water

vague line of the horizon

merciless hymn hymning hymnal

vespers alike pathways of my mind

traversing my archaic depths

before my advent into this world

caustic gases that choked the soldiers

orders of generals decorated for valor

and death blessing the short years

of the unlucky, loneliness

residing in my primeval verse

POEM BY SISSY DOYTSIOU

YOU MAY BURY ME ALIVE

You may bury me alive

in the earth

it wouldn’t bother me.

You may put me

in a narrow casket

it wouldn’t bother me at all

that I couldn’t move my fingers

I would die —

you may bury me alive

deep in the earth

that I couldn’t hear the sobs and sorrow of my friends

I wouldn’t be upset

without pity

without my empty heart

and my sister’s whispers

with no help

alone, it wouldn’t bother me

the whispers of my friends

with no help

alone

my death.

You may bury me alive

it wouldn’t bother me

that I would smell the moist soil

in the earth

it’s always moist, it never gets dry in the earth

the soil is always emotional

I could dig deep in the soil

under this life

under this life

a layer of dead people exists

under our feet

our dead sleep

under the foundations of this world

sick bodies rest

tiring thoughts

bleeding heroes

sacrifices

fetuses

wise old men

under this life

they caress the soil

skeletons of memory

love letters

old pictures

you may bury me alive

it wouldn’t bother me at all

that I couldn’t breath

in the darkness

no problem

under our world

the endless white sea of the cursed people flows

the last efforts for survival spasm

I encourage you to bury me alive

I don’t like much sensationalism

I admit my wish

for a triumphant elation

to exist with truthfulness

beyond the hot asphalt

alive

for a while

so long as I last

so long as I last.