Long Listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards

https://griffinpoetryprize.com/press/2023-longlist-announcement/

Then the great silence took control
and the sun started going down
amid the fiery sky in the west.
And the sky turned red. And the soil red like blood.
Nothing was heard on the whole earth.
And dark phalanxes started appearing
slowly-slowly coming down the slopes.
The war dead started appearing
from all the plains, the gorges, the mountains,
the roads.
They unfolded into black long lines as if
they were going to battle
and they proceeded dragging along their feet
and they staggered with their bodies leaning forward
as if they had walked for a long time
as if they felt tired of waiting for so long
and they marched and limped and they stirred slowly
at the far end of the world.
The earth quaked every so often then it cracked open
and a black-green hand poked out of the soil
and stretched its rotten fingers.
The dead stirred and stood up
and they stepped on the other dead and walked
and they dragged themselves on the earth
and grabbing onto the army coats of the others
they rose and joined the phalanxes making
millions of walking dead.
The horizons turned fiery red as if the world was on fire.
Dead men were coming from the trenches,
from subterranean stoas, holes,
they were coming from the mass graves dug in
the plains
where they buried them in haste as if they were shoveling
a pile of manure.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763564

Loose Ends
All night long, sleepless,
you promised not to cry
to drive downtown
to the family lawyer
and tie up loose ends
suddenly, you sense his presence
so intensely in the car
on the driver’s seat
he used to call his kingdom
you feel as if sitting on top of him
his erection deep inside you
like when you saddled him
back then, in the secluded
Horseshoe Bay Park road and
you pull the car to the shoulder
rapid heartbeat overtakes you
a sweet elation runs through
your spine down to your torso
conspicuously moving
forward and backward

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763750

We’re the immortal and uncivilized
the cities are dens of serpents
and refuges of all the cowards
of fighting and self-defeat, dens of
wolves, dogs, sheep and shepherds
wail and wail again at their homeland!
Fences are always our enemies
when they enclose the world
wild verdure and nettles sprout
behind them, misery in their shade;
the traitor’s conniving wilts all
the mindful ideals and shuts all
nightingales of the heart.
The sin always dwells like a scorpion
inside of them, never the brave lion;
the fence marks the evil man and
the good is but a baby in opium;
work the earth again in your gallows
rejuvenate its good and sins
pounding it with your hammer on the anvil;
Pass over fences, give to your
mules wings and ride them like witches
the world is whole and endless
where the lands end the seas begin.
From atop of each mountain that
you’ll climb you’ll gaze at other
higher mountain peak, a
different, mind boggling world
and when you’ll reach the highest
of the highest peaks you’ll still
understand that you live under
the same stars.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D3LP7NW6

E
The seasons and the people’s passing
leader of music and gate keeper
was created in the crucible of wailing
with the caressing of the Evening Star
with precious tears and
wreaths of the sun that vanished
before dusk
with bits of joy gleaming
in the sunken wrath of people
oh, whispers talkative, talkative
songs of girls that touched
the flutter of Helicon wings
oh, the face won over
the downpour of eternity
F
After the death of authority
we waited for the king’s celebrations
messengers of the lost war and
the orders of the slaughtered
on these sunken mountains
we waited for the vow of youth forgotten
along with the adventure of the roads
we carry the light and the spade
of the eighth day
entrusted in us
by the bitterness of God.
With the silence of memory
that consumes us
wrapped like an ivy over our bodies
with the music of love
spent along the bands of stench
with the full of holes prayer
of the Esfigmeni monks
G
The deeds of the eighth day
are thrown into a stone water well
all around them: thorns and poison
and the skin of the tree snake.
They don’t yell because
they are archetypes
of thunder and thunderbolts.
When thunderbolts strike
subterranean roots
onto the virginal mirrors of silence
matches are stricken by the fingers of God.
Small birds with ready wings
flying to the breath of the seventh space
become invisible
not consumed
in their defeated castles
that on the day of echoes
they render useless
the formidable trumpets

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763408

Hades
My mind clings to the love song I wanted to sing for you, opposite the deadly rhapsody sung to you by Hades, foggy and indiscernible memory before He took you away, my beloved, my heaven, my constantly heartfelt euphoria, I miss you
—Don’t forget to pick up the garbage can with both arms: it’s heavy for your ailing heart
Hades lurked behind the old oak we passed on our last walk through the glen, where I’m now stranded in the dark forest where nymphs rarely appear
—Don’t forget to buy me a box of serviettes when you go to the drugstore.
Absurd, that I feel like singing a love song for you and the phone rings and takes me away from my thoughts as if to bring me good news: I’m alive, I can still love you forever, better than the absurdity of serenading the phone receiver as if it makes my loneliness go away
—Which cereal did you buy this time? You know I like chocolate Cheerios.
Yet during the purple twilight, I mesmerize my mind with the absurd thought of peace, singing a love song to an unknown listener while the missiles keep falling on bald heads and corpses of soldiers, and you’re gone forever
—Why don’t we go on a cruise next month? We have the time, don’t we?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763769

Memento of Constantinople
on the marble quay of the palace,
they have placed, in an almost straight line,
piles of wood
barges brought from distant
shore forests
and other piles from thin
lissome trunks like a Kore’s body
and other piles
of gigantic, huge
trees
it constantly rains and the persistent rain
drenches the graceless woods
and the marble of the quay gleam
as the water washes them repeatedly
and the sky is heavy and black,
one wonders if anyone knows what time it is,
there is no hope for any of that
(The opposite shore has vanished
as if it never existed)
and the sea is moody and wild
as if the endless raindrops that hit it
have awakened a strong anger inside it
that it can hardly hold back
no one else is in this deserted place
other than I, the same one, and
I stand with my drenched red hair
glued onto my forehead
the travails of love have brought me here
to the tender seashore
and my mind always flies to a beautiful
proud magnolia
that thrives and blooms
in this place

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763734

AND THERE were some days when we lost heart when some
appeared coming our way from afar; what news did
they bring to us we asked?
Leave us in our misfortune, why do we want these deeds,
we, the defeated since the ancient days as the sundown
came though they never asked for our approval. Thus in order
to survive a clear forehead was enough
and we spoke but a little until night fell.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087367R7C