Tasos Livaditis – Poems, Volume II

Long-listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards

FORGIVE me, oh Lord, that I survived since You had
secretly placed my life under a peplos
like lovers, at night, who hold someone else
in their arms
while they stand behind, in the shadow, and ah,
to tread the world is nothing but a sob.
However, under the lighted torches of the evening
let him be blessed who is ready to forget like
the farmer who throws his seed on the ground
until autumn when we light the oil lamp earlier
and all the silent people resort to words that
perhaps save us somewhere else.

https://draft2digital.com/book/4051627

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

Philosopher, Francesco Patrizi

Ken Kirkby – Warrior Painter

excerpt

The Promise that Propelled a Life
“But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep…”
(Robert Frost, Poet)
~~
Ken worked at a number of jobs on the lower mainland but never gave up
his fixation on the north. It is unlikely his sense of destiny remotely hinted
that the path he was on would directly consume thirty years and several
fortunes, the majority of which would be spent in one of the major cities of
the world. It was enough that his mind was filled with his dream of this vast
and empty land.
Many thousands of Canadians made their home in Vancouver and
environs, and it frustrated him that he’d not found anyone who had been to
the Arctic, or even expressed more than a passing interest in that inaccessible
land that made up one-third of Canada.
The city was not a good fit for him, and within a year, he was leaving
it behind. He worked for several seasons on the construction of the WAC
Bennett Dam at Hudson’s Hope—an experience that has stood him in
good stead both through the workplace challenges he met, and the lasting
connection he made with WAC Bennett himself.
This odd association resulted in a piece of useful advice offered during
Ken’s long battle on behalf of the Inuit. The Premier of British Columbia
recommended that if all else failed, Ken should practice “Legislation by
exhaustion—the last man standing wins.” Over the years, Ken found it fit
his style admirably.
While working in Hudson’s Hope, he fell in love with a beautiful First
Nations girl and crumbled in broken-hearted despair when she was taken in
a tragic accident on the eve of their wedding. Tormented and withdrawn, he
took refuge in the compelling images imprinted into his brain by Francisco’s
tales of the Canadian northland. These seemed to offer some promise of
respite and became the catalyst that drove him into the Arctic. By the time
he was twenty-five, he had lived several years with the Inuit and travelled
by foot, boat and dogsled from Coppermine, NWT to Baffin Island and
back. In the process, he gave his promise to an Inuit grandmother …

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562902

Neo-Hellene Poets, an Anthology of Modern Greek Poetry

SECOND ODE

SECOND ODE — TO GLORY
Whoever said that glory
was as purposeless
as those who seek it
and burn myrrh to it,
spoke falsely.
Glory bestows wings
on those who seek it,
directs them
to the rough and
difficult path of virtue.
Whoever accepts
the call of glory
but refuses to follow it
has an impotent soul
and a contemptible heart
He has never shed tears
over the graves
of his friends
nor ever kissed
the soil of his kin.
Oh, Hellas, you have seeded
the fiery desire of glory
in the hearts of your sons
and thus are called
the mother of us all.
As when the lion
emerges from its den
charging and wounding,
killing and scattering alike
brave hunters and multitudes of Arabs,

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562959

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763513

Übermensch

Similarities
Although something new occurred almost daily
since the hour we met Him, fame had promised not
to ignore us and we didn’t ask for anything else
but to occasionally pull out of the bag of chaos
the bloomed rose or the perennial smile of
the young lover while our Hero stood transfixed on
the dead body of the rope walker who left behind
a splendid legacy most people would love to have
yet never had the courage to fight for.
Even more so when the jester was more important
than the minister and the undertaker more valuable
than the tax collector, after all they all specialized
on the ephemeral.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3746914

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BGFRGLVH

Arrows

excerpt

When he had finished with my face, he gave me an appreciative
look and nodded his satisfaction. Then, he extended the gourd to me
and told me to do the same over the rest of my body. I was reluctant
at first, but after a spell he left, and I began to feel the itching ease.
Good enough for me, I thought, and proceeded to do as I was told.
I was squeezing the last of the sap and applying it to my groin
when Guacaipuro appeared, still wearing his perpetual scowl.
“Mareoka,” he said.
Apparently he was resuming our conversation. He extended his
hand, palm upward. I looked at it stupidly and then at his
countenance, failing to grasp his meaning.
“Mareoka,” he repeated. He thrust his hand toward me again. I
felt as though there was a tiny monk running amok inside my head,
looking in every corner for something related to this one magic word
that was the gateway to his witchcraft.
“Ah! Mareoka!” I slapped my forehead, as if I suddenly
understood.
For the first time, Guacaipuro smiled, as if he had finally won me
over. From the pocket of my habit I extracted my copy of the New
Testament that he had previously rejected by tossing it onto the
ground. I offered it to him again. “Mareoka,” I said, solemnly.
If I was agreeing that Mareoka was superior, it was only to allow
me the freedom to prove to him otherwise. I hoped God would
forgive me.
“Tamanoa,” I said, pointing to my friend.
Guacaipuro was more interested in the strangeness of the book. I
seized the opportunity to take advantage of my newfound
respectability by untying the ropes. Guacaipuro did not appear to
object. I moved slowly, deliberately, until Tamanoa was able to
stand beside me, free.
Guacaipuro shook his head, dissatisfied. He took the rope and
tied Tamanoa’s wrist to my wrist. This was his compromise
solution. I must not allow my servant to run away. As soon as I
gleaned his intent, I yanked hard on the rope, jerking Tamanoa
beside me.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562848

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522

Η ιδιαίτερη περίπτωση της αυτόχειρα συγγραφέα Νίκης-Ρεβέκκας Παπαγεωργίου

Χρήστος Ντάλιας

Hours of the Stars

Ionia
Ionia was lost forever
in 1922
Ionia, a spring and a mother.
Think of the silent deeds
that stand by us
when we become conscious of the great pain
deeds of man and the mountains
take form slowly in such a way
grievance isn’t for Greece
but for history.
How often power hidden
in the mystery of life
turns its face away from
the honest works of man
before the decay
that confronts and spreads
like the frozen and parched
gust of winter
the longing of the Greek
and the Turk’s arrogance
fade away.
Both alike
the sun and the cloud
that together sink and dissolve in the night
in the great night.
In Ionia one can meet us
you and I and
the black headscarf of the grandmother.
One can see the made of oak wood boat of Odysseus
the vendetta of stony Mani
and Markos Mpotsaris’ Laka-Souli
the voice that became Logos
or the playful waves
accentuated by star matter
thickening the columns of the temple.
In Ionia man tried
to create the face of god
and at last
he created his own
thoughtful face.

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

Tasos Livaditis – Selected Poems

THE NIGHT led us sometimes to forgetfulness and other
times into feverish roses
like the love you give up and then what you want to say stands
behind heavier than before
and the defeated saw another shadow
that walked next to him
because such sorrow was too much for just one man. Until at dawn,
the beggars,
since the ancient days engaged to the corners of the streets, reclaimed
their rights
and we had to endure our everyday history like a different, wider
sky.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3751267

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087367R7C