Poem by Alexandra Bakonika

THE LAST GARMENT

For a long time he had courted her
and when he found her on the beach
among acquaintances and friends
he spread his towel beside her
and as they lied very close, he touched her.
He got lucky
and was somehow surprised
by her immediate response
she stood up and led him
to a secluded remote beach
where they stopped
and from experience gained from former
love affairs
she knew the heat
she caused when she stood stark naked
and throwing off the final piece of her garments
she started going in and out of the water
many times and flamboyantly
as if to tell him

die wanting me

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Boreas

With sharpened fangs and

grasping talons

they depict Boreas

though its benevolence

runs smoothly through your veins 

as my hand under satin blouse

follows contour of your nipple

and the Boreas sings

for us two hiding

in the terrace loveseat

secluded from

the neighbor’s conspiring eyes

and you said

I enjoy the wind’s caress on my legs

as I do your fingers on my nipple

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Spring Longing

He was startled by a bloomed tree in the unkempt park.

The maid with the sailor on the bench.

The open horse carriage in front of the suburb

            bus station.

Haven’t that longing and indeed the trust

            got tired?

Surely the young girl in the opposite house

had climbed on a chair to hang the light, white

curtain. She didn’t hang it. She stepped down.

She stopped in front of the mirror and touched her

breasts.

            The curtain looked elsewhere, with one

shoulder leaning to the side as if waiting for her

other hand to touch the other shoulder.

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Summer Solstice

13

A bit longer and the sun will stop.

The ghosts of dawn

blew among the dry conches;

to a bird chirped three times, three times only;

the lizard on the white rock

remains motionless

looking at the parched grass

there where a tree snake slid away.

Black wing incises a deep gash

high in the sky’s blue dome—

look at it, it’ll open.

Birth pain of resurrection.

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DEVIL WITH THE CANDLESTICK

4

As evening comes army of forgotten people go out

         for cheap looting

and those smuggled who survived in their houses

and the shadow of the glass on the wall scares them

like a hand that gives alms;

then I was naked in the last row of cinema seats

watching the current events of old wars and someone

          suddenly turned off the power

although the bombing continued without audio

cities were ruined noiselessly like in fairy tales

          and the lone woman,

in the middle of the road, got a key out of her little

          purse and swallowed it

thus she has somewhere to go, in fact I, continuously,

          lighted some matches for her;

they threw me out though I climbed up the water pipes

following the limping dog to his heavenly visits

           the knife to its sob and

I now leave without leaving any trace of me behind

as if I was a totally haste sundown.

My poor flesh, besieged by arteries, pimps, autumns

always defeated behind the wooden divider;

in a vulva I discovered many empty black bottles,

           Dante,

the dead corner ice vendor,

emergency groups running in the darkness though

the phosphoric eyes of the cat constantly stir;

I hated you, whore, so many times that I became a

           cemetery of perjuring children and

now with my fingers on your uterus I’ll turn you

           inside out 

until a luckier number may fall out and this night

           passes.

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Ταυτότητα

     Αργά φτάσαμε στο στούντιο του χορευτή.

Οπάλινη μουσική, περιρρέουσα ατμόσφαιρα

περιτειχισμένος οίστρος. Τα βήματά του περιγράφανε

καμπύλες οι βραχίονες σχηματίζαν γραμμές από

μακρινές χώρες όνειρο δειλό εκεί που κατευθύνονταν

ο χορευτής με το παράξενο χαμόγελο αξία φύσης

που δεν αναλυόταν στη χημεία δυο φρύδια υψωμένα

σε συμφωνία με κάποιο ουράνιο βιολοντσέλο

λεπτοί μηροί που δημιουργούσαν το αιώνιο

αίνιγμα που προσπαθήσαμε πολύ να ξεδιαλύνουμε

όμως μετά `πό χρόνια πολλά διαισθανθήκαμε πως

σημασία δεν είχε πια καμιά. Εκείνος θαύμασε

τις κινήσεις του κορμιού μες στον αγέρα και

του αγέρα τους αναστεναγμούς γύρω απ’ το κορμί

και προσφώνησε δυο μούσες, μια για το χορευτή

και μια για τον Υπεράνθρωπο που ήταν ο χορευτής.

Affinity

We slowly arrived at the dancer’s studio:

opaline music, secluded inspiration, ambience.

His steps wrote contours, his arms morphed

elliptical lines from faraway lands; to the timid

dream he was headed, the dancer, with the peculiar

smile, value of life never explained in chemistry;

two eyebrows raised in symphony with celestial

cello, thin legs that created his eternal enigma

that we had tried so much to decipher, yet years

later we understood it wasn’t as important.

He admired the movements of the dancer

in the air and the air’s sigh around the dancer’s

body and He evoked two Muses, one for the dancer

the other for the Übermensch the dancer was.

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Poem by Sissy Doutsiou

LEVIATHAN

The black sea

thick unexplored bottom

big waves, exulted sea froth

the only ones who survived Leviathan

dark

fearful

powerful

the peace of its seafloor

passage to Hades

you won’t need to bribe with bronze coins

trembling before the dark endlessness is enough

your relatives won’t need to feed death

under your tongue: nothing

Acheron is sorry

Cocytus wails

Phlegethon explodes

Lethe forgets

Styx hates

lives tied

to various places

you haven’t imagined

pirates

construction sites

sailors

breaths of men chained on gigantic anchors

they put aside skates and red fishes

to report a full cargo to the port authorities

cosmetics and accessories for women

last breaths of mammals

with their eyes pulled by the metal net

plastic colorful hands

disembowel schools of fish

they just have time for a cigarette

the sea is angry

tyrant and at the same time

savior of the earth

industry sounds and

the cries of Atlantic

buzzing

and the rough unfamiliar

Leviathan

details give you vertigo

the magenta’s light is low

about thirty five per cent

each instrument in its place

for its hanging

for its underwater killing

chains, hooks, pipes.

A load of blood

the blood of sea weed

dried exotic conches

wrinkled star fishes that shed tears

and dried up corals —

wrinkled memories of a sea floor

plastic blue gloves

remind you the color of dawn

stow beauty in orange plastic pails

souvenir from Portugal, mom,  

buy me that sea horse,

it’s so nice

Dead.

Men like machines

with no emotions

frozen eyes

cold

the wind that makes you

think only of hunger

wine

cigarettes

a chubby cunt to fuck

repeated movements

repetition kills tenderness

repetition

cynic words

and survival.

A trap door that spits blood

and pieces of rotten sea meat

twenty four degrees and fifteen minutes north latitude

seventy six degrees west longitude

alone

in the ocean.

Parts of the ship

rectangular shapes

square and multi-angular

with schisms

the heavy and salty sea water

goes through

fills and

empties

rocks

when the rusted shapes fill

with men near death

the sea

washes them clean

freshens them

until they die of asphyxiation

a load made of corpses

their fate was common

to stop

running inconceivably in the sea floor

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TIME FOR A PERSON IN LOVE

Time is different for a person in love;

who’s not practical

moments come to an end with no results

future is planned with the most beautiful images

of yesterday’s love

separation is regarded as death

when the feeling die

he doesn’t recognize himself.

When I meet him at the grocery store

we greeted each other

then the dialogue

with you starts

euphoria of the first encounter:

I feel light as I leave

if you had the chance to touch me

eyes on the ground if the horrible

glance of separation appeared again.

I let go of everything

the moment from the present

and I enter into a different moment

thick and undivided

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