PLEASURE
Old age, serene, beyond joy or sorrow
beyond expectations. It evaluates its time without
impatience which it almost doesn’t consider; it loses
itself before a hornet that dives deep in its buzz,
before a glass with its clear circle floating in the air.
Quiet, endless period after the responsibility and
the action, silent, sweet period, like a woman in bed,
a woman after an orgasm, who joyously weights
the soft heaviness of man’s genitals in her palm.
POEM BY JOHN POLEMIS
MOTHERLAND
What is our motherland? Perhaps the plains
and snow-capped mountain peaks?
Is it perhaps the golden sun that shines upon her
or is it night’s innumerable bright stars?
Is it perhaps each of her shallow shores
and all her counties with their villages,
each landscape, every isle that distantly appears
on each one of her many seas?
Is it perhaps her ruined monuments,
the ancient temples crumbling in the sun,
yet decorated by her art’s immortal glory
that echoes everywhere you turn?
All these are our motherland. These and those
and what we have deep in our hearts
which unseen, like a sun ray, shines
and calls inside us: Let us march, my boys!
LONG LISTED FOR THE 2023 GRIFFIN POETRY AWARDS
https://griffinpoetryprize.com/press/2023-longlist-announcement/
HORSE EYED WOMENAnd the three middle aged maids
those who make the erotic beds
who have never been loved
those with
the big teary horse eyes
forgotten in the snow
gathered in the maids room
like an ancient tragic chorus
in front of the propylaea
of a dirty sink
talk with such forbearance
that even the simplest words
from their bitter mouths
suddenly take the deep gleam
of the myths.
And they talk of their earnings
about the rain, dreams, regrets
and about all the different ways
one can cook potatoes
about the murders reported
in the newspapers, about emptying
the sewage tank and erasing death
and about the Resurrection
and all other eternal things. And
they talk and talk wishing to
exist in their words, while the deep
wrinkles in their faces resemble
furrows that time flows through
falling noiselessly
in eternity.
Those women with the tough, dirty
hands purified by the eternal offering.
Exactly Now
Now that you have nothing to say nothing
to show to emphasize to defend now
that everything is lost (and not just for you) exactly now
you may speak roaming among the
tools of torture turning around with your
small finger the meaningless wheels of
broken clocks or that huge hovering
non-resistant wheel still a bit wet
as they raised it from the sunken ship –
exactly now pulling ropes from the ceiling
listening to the sound of pulleys above you
in vague places like the stars during that night
when we came back from the countryside and in
the marble courtyard they had set in exact order
two rows of black wooden highchairs
and in the middle the king’s golden closed casket
without any flags without the crown and the sword
On A Ray Of Winter Light
3
My comrades drove me crazy
with theodolites, sextants, compass needles
and telescopes that enlarge things—
better if they were kept away.
Where would such routes bring us?
But the day that commenced then
has not gone by yet
with a flame like a rose in the ravine
and with an airy sea at the feet of God.
THE FOUNTAIN
In the moldy garden
water flows again
from the stony mouth of Poseidon
and the undefeated frog
prepares its new generation
over the solemn fossils.
Ah, yes sweetness unexpectedly
overflows the same way
the fountain rises again
among its watery suns
while my soul
unprepared squirrel
shades itself with its tail.
And as the park becomes slowly alive
and the owls stir
in their dark offices
and the thunderous dancing water
inside the silent rocks
of the closed house
like a stately residence — my life
turned alive again
by the talkative waters
you poured in my mouth.
Cenotaph
Finally they called the joy a sin
and my agreement with you a transgress
what did they leave for us
other than mediocrity and
leaden clouds? What did they
leave other than their laws
written on desolate cenotaphs?
Finally they named our joy a sin
and our understanding another trespass
but they failed to see through
the veil to immense brightness
of our strength They couldn’t cut
beyond the rind they couldn’t taste
the sweetness of our love
LONG LISTED FOR THE 2023 GRIFFIN POETRY AWARDS
HORSE EYED WOMEN
A city among thousands of other cities on earth
with houses, roads, monuments
the passing musicians, cemeteries, the crazies
the ones who run after bread and others who run
after their dreams
with those who keep silent, those who postpone,
those who betray,
with their imposing temples and the small, remote
taverns
like forgotten, foggy corners of a humble paradise
with the naked people, the traitors, the egoists,
the notary public
with the tears and the serious decisions taken
during the night
with the smiles and the little daily compromises
a city swallowed by dust and commotion and
lights and dreams.
I SAW
I saw a far-off country in my peaceful dream,
a land whose beauty no soul can describe,
that seized my mind and made me leave my meager village
and promised myself I there alone would settle.
A foolish youth I started, spellbound by the beauty
of my dream, and passed through lands hemmed in by water
and others clothed with shining plains and hillsides,
but still the land I longed for receded, always further off.
The passersby I met urged me to settle.
This is a beauteous land, stay here, they said.
Yes, I replied, your land is good, my friends,
but not the one I dream of, which is far away.
Leave me to travel slowly,
alone to pass the plains and mountains.
Perhaps one day I’ll reach it but even if I don’t,
don’t ever ask me, brothers, anywhere to settle.
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
Manolis Aligizakis 