New World

Here I enter the world

of an immortal as the trees

on the other side of the river

meditate their good fortune

slight shiver through my spine

as your wonders smile and

the chair you once sat laments

as the ruffle of the air

sings of your Death to the

lonely hawks and to the pious

peasants. You put your hand

on the anvil once again and

a sweet babble overtakes

my heart water in the river

sighs as the realm of

spirit opens like a rose and

rudimentary sound of order

hovers in a young, blue

universe which you create

with your ambitious brush.

In the realm of nascent pathos

where does the line mark

my flesh or your flesh Great Father?

Your celestial new world appears as

a humble resonance echoing

to the ends of space and

in the tympanums of my dreams

the night weeps in fairy tales

of the laughing children and

it all makes sense now, yes,

in the eyes of your Cretan sun

there is no ephemeral light

just immortality and your hand

as in a miracle guides your

brush to unfold reality like

the joyous heart of a child

it all makes sense now

deathlessness, chromatism

splendorous fusion of ethereal

with the invincible earthly

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POINTLESS EXIT

The house was empty, full of expectation. He couldn’t

endure it; he closed the door behind him and went

                 to the street.

The door got unhinged and followed him. He could hear,

quite clearly, his door following him in the street, which

was quite flooded by lights, and he sensed the vertical

loneliness of the door on his back, and, behind the door,

he felt the empty house and its expectation. Then he

              suddenly

turned and letting his face lean against the door he

              started crying.

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Γιατρός

     Ωχροί άντρες μας ακολούθησαν, ανεξήγητη αφέλεια,

αφού ούτε καν μπορούσαμε να βρούμε το δρόμο μας

δίχως τις οδηγίες Του. Η συγνώμη δεν είχε ακόμα εφευρεθεί

απ’ τους φανατικούς που κρατούσαν δαυλούς αναμμένους

κι όλοι μας νοιώσαμε πως είχαμε χαθεί στην προσπάθεια

να εξηγήσουμε το ανεξήγητο και να εντοπίσουμε ξανά

το για πάντα χαμένο όταν φτάσαμε στο νοσοκομείο

που βρήκαμε το γιατρό πάνω από ένα τραυματισμένο στρατιώτη.

Παρ’ όλο που ο χάρτης του ξεκάθαρα έδειχνε πως δεν υπήρχε

πια ελπίδα την τελευταία μάχη είχε σχεδόν χάσει, παρατηρήσαμε

την προσοχή του γιατρού στην κάθε λεπτομέρεια όταν

ο οδηγός μας έκλεισε τα μάτια του τραυματισμένου

στρατιώτη, έσφιξε το χέρι του γιατρού σαν ν’ απορροφούσε

όλο του τον πυρετό κι αφού εκράτησε ενός λεπτού σιγή του

είπε: ‘Εσύ είσαι γένος και συγγένειά μου, υπάρχω μέσα σου

κι εσύ μες την καρδιά μου σε θρόνο κάθεσαι σαν βασιλιάς’.

Doctor

Pale men followed us, inexplicable stupidity, as

we were incapable of finding our own way without

a guide; mercy wasn’t invented yet fanatics

held torches and half lit icons and we all felt lost

in our quest to render the inexplicable explained

then we arrived at the hospital and found a doctor

leaning over an injured soldier. Although the injured

soldier’s chart clearly showed there was no hope, he had

already lost his last battle, we observed the attention

of the doctor to every possible detail of the stats when

our leader closed the dead soldier’s eyes, shook

the doctor’s hand as if taking in Him all the doctor’s fever

and He said: ‘you are my brethren and kin, I dwell

in you and you sit in my heart like a king on his throne.’

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2023 Longlist Announcement

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The Garden at Dusk

He noticed the garden through the back door railings;

The gardener, on a ladder, was gathering fruit;

further away a girl with a basket had her eyes closed

and a book on her knees. At the far end the houses

looked rosy in the dusk. Only the kitchen window was

lighted. Someone from there called the girl. She got up.

The gardener felt so alone again, guilty, furtively happy,

since he had passed the whole garden under his arm

like a basket, hanging onto that internal voice that

deepened the whole evening; a basket full of leaves

and fruit  and the small golden knife among them.

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ON STAGE

3

What were you looking for? You look like a stammer.

You had just gotten up

leaving the bed sheets to freeze

and the avenging baths.

Drops of water flowed on your shoulders

on your belly

your feet bare on the soil

on the cut grass.

Those, other three

the faces of the daring Hecate.

They tried to take you with them.

Your eyes, two tragic conches

and you had on the nipples of your breasts

two small purple pebbles—

things of the stage,

I don’t know.

Those three bellowed

you stood nailed to the ground,

their gesturing pierced the air.

Servants brought them knives;

you stood nailed to the ground,

a cypress.

They pulled the knives from the sheaths

and aimed for a place to stab you.

Then and only then you cried:

‘Let whoever wants to come and sleep with me,

am I not the sea?’

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Resurrection

He looks again observes discerns

through a distance that has no meaning at all

through endurance that doesn’t humiliate anymore

the moth balls in the paper bag

the dry grape leaves in the leaky pail

the bicycle on the opposite sidewalk.

Suddenly

he hears the knock behind the wall

that same one coded totally alone

the deeper knock. He feels like an innocent

who forgot the dead.

At night he doesn’t

use earplugs anymore – he’s left them

in the drawer along with his medals

and with his last most unsuccessful mask.

Only he doesn’t know this is the last one

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Old Man

He walks his dog

other side of the street

fierce wind exhausts itself

among tree branches, dancing leaves

when old man suddenly stops

focusing eyes on the ground

he slowly leans

over cement sidewalk

even more slowly he gets up

straightening aching back

holding by it stem a dry maple leaf

which he brings close to

his eyes and observes carefully

turning it to the other side

examines in detail

the curled ribs of the leaf

its hunched body

bereft of flexibility

just like his

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VI

Nights with their tightly shut doors,

in the safety of a dirty bed

in a dream that erases the footsteps

that trample darkness,

tired dream, silent, only with sperm, with saliva

spasmodically shutting the cracks of screams

momentarily,

and again in the lustful warmth of nakedness. 

Days with the totally hidden rust of tears

in the dark brand new suits,

days trapped in the personally won bread

and then, after the end of the celebration,

the harbor master supervises the carrying of its bones;

and from good morning to good morning, from

one silence to another,

the fear —

smoking half a cigarette between two cadavers.

Where they deny me they’ll deny me again,

forgotten, ignored, a burdensome ancient

acquaintance,

a mask ravaged by horror and frost

like change in front of the fear of change

where they sent me away and spat on me

where they smiled at me and then they pretended

the future smokestacks, while all along, it was like

Saturday evenings with their fiancé, and

I was left alone with extended hand amid

the deserted autumns with

only the wind that applied salt deep in the wounds

that kisses opened,

there where we felt hungry together and now

they don’t share their hunger with me

where we ate together and now they don’t

even give me a piece of bread or coal

where we walked together and they now deny me

each step and stone

where we slept and now they deny me sleep

and hope

where we lived and now they deny me the door

of their houses

where we lived and now they deny me the certainty

and patience

there is where I shall go.

Because something that doesn’t vanish

exists in everyone

something exists in everyone that life holds

in its two hands tightly.

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