JOHN KANTAKOUZINOS TRIUMPHS

He looks at the fields that he still controls

with the wheat, with the animals, with

fruit-trees. And farther on, his family home,

full of clothes and fine furniture, and silver.

They will take it all—Jesus Christ!—they will take it all now.

Would Kantakouzinos feel sorry for him

if he were to go and prostrate himself. People say that he is merciful,

quite merciful. But what about the people around him? What about the army?—Or, should he plead, and cry in front of Lady Irene?

Foolish! To be involved in Anna’s party—

he wishes Andronikos had never married her.

Have we seen any progress as a result

of her behavior, or any humanity?

Even the Franks don’t respect her anymore.

Her plans were ridiculous, and all her preparation.

While they spread fear from Constantinople to the world

Kantakouzinos crushed them, King John crushed them.

And he had in his mind to go with King John all along!

He would have done it too. Now he would have been happy,

a great Lord always secure,

if at the last moment the bishop hadn’t swayed him,

with his priestly authority,

with his misinformation from beginning to end

and with his promises, and his stupidities.

Duality

And I laughed at the comedian’s joke

as if grabbing onto the ship’s handrail

that I wouldn’t fall into the abysmal

mouth of the monstrous logic

many men appeared hungry for my flesh 

easy it was to talk to the inexplicable

when suddenly I felt the fangs

of the inexorable clock ticking

their strange hymn lamenting

my descent to Erebus, where

I was greeted by family members and after

my uncle Antony’s funeral

we all walked to the proper celebration

surprising them all as I too attended

and they all understood the meaning

of the eagle flying over us as if to confirm

on this earth and under it that we once existed

Silence

When people turned deaf you understood

that they had finally learned the truth or at least

they had touched that secret pride

not to repeat the well-memorized lie

In the evening they sit in the dark inside the house

having both their feet in a earthen basin

with warm water and listening to the old train

going by on time loaded with barrels

sacks of cement re-bar fridges soldiers

and a gigantic whale cut in even pieces

SHAPE OF ABSENCE  XXI

Since the day of your passing everyone migrated. We, who

stayed behind, are strangers to the day and to the night. The dark

steps of fear creak deep in the mirrors with the concern that

perhaps we might cut ourselves while shaving, that perhaps

we won’t recognize our strange faces, which you recognized

           as yours and ours too.

Only the road where we took you for a walk during the hot

           summer afternoons

up to the small station, along the flower shop and the bakery,

           that road

retains the marks of the wheels of your carriage

as if in a noisy tunnel of our old time, untouched

by the low tone chirps of the birds, the fragrance

           of the fruit, 

the curses one hears in the marketplace. Our space,

untouched, unspoiled, holy, beyond time, a tunnel

that secretly takes you from under the thoughtful

           good evening of the neighbours.

Tears

Tears run down the cheeks

of the statue during its hour

of meditative thought as if

a merciless thunder covered

the shining palms of the tourist

flawless end and nothing

will ever sprout in my palms but

thanatos as the sun shone hot

on the glyph’s smooth skin,

on the decapitated bust of Athena

under which I’ll bury the foreign

perversion: lavish tables, canned nature,

and preservatives when the arm

of the Goddess pointed over the sand

to the end of the horizon

where birds sang with lustful voices,

joyous and pleasant quivering, first

hymeneal song of my virginal spring

Long Listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards

Raven

                                             In memoriam Edgar Allan Poe

Years like wings. What does the motionless raven remember?

What do the dead remember near the roots of trees?

Your hands had the color of the falling apple.

And this voice that always returns in a low tone.

Those who travel focus on the sail and the stars

hear the wind and beyond the wind the other sea

like a closed conch near them, they hear nothing

else, they don’t search among the shadows of the cypresses

for a lost person, a coin, they don’t question

looking at the raven on a dry tree branch what it remembers.

It stays motionless over my hours a bit higher

like the soul of an eyeless statue

a huge crowd has gathered inside this bird

a thousand people forgotten, vanished wrinkles

vacant embraces and laughter never completed

works stopped halfway, silent stations

a heavy slumber of golden drizzle.

It stays motionless. Stares at my hours. What does it remember?

There are many wounds in the invisible people, inside it

suspended passions yearning for the Second Coming

humble desires glued on the ground

children killed and women tired of the daybreak.

Does it weigh down the dry branch, does it weigh down

the roots of the yellow tree, over the shoulders

of the other people, the strange faces

who don’t dare touch a drop of water though sunken in the ground

does it weight down anywhere?

Your hands had the weight of hands in the water

in the sea caves, a light weight, without thought

with the motion that we suddenly push away an ugly thought

laying the pelagos to the far end of the horizon to the islands.

The plain is heavy after the rain;

what does the motionless black flame remembers against the gray sky

wedged between man and the memory of man

between a wound and the hand that injured it black spear

the plain darkened drinking the rain, the wind subsided

my own breath isn’t enough, who will shift it?

Within the memory, a chasm— a startled breast

between the shadows struggling to become man and woman again

between sleep and death motionless life.

Your hands always had a movement toward the sleep of pelagos

caressing the dream that slowly ascended the silky spider web

bringing into the sun a multitude of constellations

the closed eyelids the folded wings…

POEM BY PAULINA PAMPOUDIS

BEETLE

Work

of exquisite beauty

expertly crafted

exoskeleton

impenetrable diamond chest

complete armory

expensively equipped

highly analytical vision

thousands of megapixels

precise sensory antennae

strong claws

lining of the wings  

precious, silky

perfect

fully armed

for the day’s struggle

broken

in the beak of the bird