New Pretexts

He recalled the young newspaper sellers, winter,

         in the underground Station.

Sparrows of the schoolyards in front of the foggy

         windows.

Those small children’s beds in the hospital — how

         guiltless.

Just before Christmas, it was raining; they were singing

         Christmas carols, down in the city.

“What do I have?” he asked. No one answered. The question

looked elsewhere. Same with poetry, elsewhere, with

         the kitchen apron

warming up our yesterday meal. “Yes, and poetry, he said,

or rather a few words and long in-between pauses”.

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Π.Π. Παναγιώτου, Λαύρειο

Long Listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards

2023 Longlist Announcement

(excerpt)

I now climb on one of the carriages which pass

         in my sleep

and I escape. You’ll find me again in the most beautiful

poems of the next century

where I’ll feel nostalgic for God.

However, during the nights I take pills and go to bed

           early not to sleep

but to experience strange encounters with people

           I have lost

or with uncertain persons, vague, who I met years ago

           suddenly in the night

and thank God I never understood the world

and this shiver that runs through the house is from

          actions we avoided (and regretted)

great events that vanished in the bustle of the days,

beautiful thoughts content in a few tears and

during the night the bitter memory of those who

betrayed me and who sleep forgave. And I loved

words that humiliated me since they recalled me to

           another childhood.

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Marko Pogačar, Συντακτικό

Αναστάσιος Δρίβας (Αθήνα, 1899 –1942), Η κίτρινη αχτίδα του φθινόπωρου

Δημήτρης Σούρας: «Τα βιολογικά φύλα είναι δύο: άντρας και γυναίκα, μόνο κάποιες σαύρες, τα ιγκουάνα δεν έχουν φύλο και αυτό μεταβάλλεται με τη θερμότητα»

Δημήτρης

Ordeal

And we lived away from Him as if we spent years

in the Purgatory, and like thoughts we wandered in

the solitude of painful moments and we divided time

in borrowed measurements, with our creative

thoughts we annulled death until our customs took

the form of loneliness and bird chirps awakened

strange yearnings in us which flew away like clouds.

The tree: a loner with which we commenced strange

discourse and with the bag we carried on our shoulders

and with the garment’s fluttering in the wind that

promised us a better future, while

He always stood up the front, His staff an emblem

of superiority and our legs kept moving us day and

night though we only stopped to marvel at

the cyclamen’s miracle

our joy being nothing but our ordeal.

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 Mr. Stratis Thalassinos Describes a Man   II Child

When I started growing up the trees horrified me,

why do you smile? Did your mind go to spring

that is so rough for children?

I liked the green leaves a lot

I think I learned a little at school because

the blotting-paper on my desk was also green

the roots of the trees tormented me when

in the warmth of winter they would come

and coil around my body

I had no other dreams when I was a child

that’s how I came to know my body.

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ένα έτσι, μαστούρα άδεια σαν συρμός

(Excerpt)

Incomparable game flying

you are but don’t you boast

come close, extend your hand,

help, become a labourer.

Match, listen, care and ask

lean down if you want to rise!

Your invincible victory comes

when you say, “firstly you submit!”

Prove that you’re the master

you dominate over your anger

your wish, your soul: become

a labourer, erase all of your

personal; place your engagement

ring among the people;

become one with the innumerable

piles of the great comradely

work. Listen to what the tree

tells you, before they cut it

to craft a boat; my eternal soul

lights inside my new body.

The wheat ears undulate serenely

as if they yearn for the last

unborn treasure: bread.

Air, earth, water, fire, of all

the human mind has tamed

nothing has escaped you and

you still hold in your darkness

the untouched and not humbled

and all the vampires of the abyss

and all the morning stars.

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