I WANT TO LEAVE

I want to leave this place, to go far away

I want to become golden dust in the air

simple element, free, brave

to an unfamiliar new land I’ll go

where things of the world will appear

like dreams and they’ll talk to the soul

where the nice faces of people will smile

and where I too shall be beautiful

where, my god, darkness wouldn’t exist

in the night, nor in the despair of the place

upon the horrible skyline or in the wind’s wailing

nor in the glances or words of people

where there won’t remain anything

but a little joy and satisfaction

where all will say that they have left forever

that perhaps they are all already dead.

‘Karyotakis-Polydouri: The Tragic Love Story’ poetry translated by Manolis Aligizakis

Bird

A bird on the tree, a short chirps, a second chirp

that ties the white spring apron around its waist;

turning its head it looks carefully, looks happy

and suddenly it dives into the light-blue, vanishes

              in its song.

Where are you looking at? Do you still see it? Show it

              to me.

https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/q9mkmy?page=1&pageSize=10

Poem by George Theoharis

A FEW DETAILS FROM THE NORMAL LIFE

AND THE DEATH OF MRS IRENE KARVONIS

She let her last breath in bed at the end of the century. During her last year of her life her memory gradually left her leading her to the starting point. She became again the little girl who she always was. She shrank into a handful of a person due to the absence of the fluids of robustness dressed in her freshly washed nightie, she was happy for a sprig of basil you would offer her or by giving her the chance to narrate incoherent stories.

She let her last breath having reached her ninety-three years. Just before she died she turned and said to her son who was by her side “I was born in Syros in 1906. I remember the day Halley’s Comet pass by the Earth. We had peas and small fried fish. They were forcing me to eat, but I wanted to see the comet, dad.”

When she closed her eyes and with the commotion that was created among the relatives who waited for her, her not yet forty days old grandchild started crying.

And if this story seems a bit melodramatic and if the question arises “for what reason a normal life deserves its place in art?” I wonder: “why the normal life of the kind Mrs. Irene Karvonis doesn’t deserve it, when among other things, she managed to finally answer the merciless question of “what shall we cook today?”

https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/vznd2p?page=1&pageSize=10

LONG LISTED FOR THE 2023 GRIFFIN POETRY AWARDS

2023 Longlist Announcement

MONOLOGUE

I uproot the words

from my throat one by one;

if they drip blood

wrap them in your handkerchief

wrap them in cotton

or grab them with pliers

and say:

he says that

to impress us

do whatever you wish.

Yet silence isn’t enough anymore

words aren’t enough.

I uproot the simple words

one by one and

I mail them to you.

https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/n4e4qv?page=1&pageSize=10

Painting

Smiling little creek stitched

in the orange colored soil

soft laughter spread on her lips

provocative upright breast

forever sweet, forever

exposed to the elements

beauty bitten by time

smiling little creek stitched

in the orange colored soil

her pelvis spread on the canvas,

lips desiring and lustful

glued on the ache of voyage

downward to the flesh of now

and the great father

the primeval source

where two legs join and

the meaning vanishes, where

nature commands

like the painter who stands

before it and staring at the painting

says in haste —

next time I’ll paint

the Hermaphrodite

https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/y26q9n?page=1&pageSize=10