Poetry, Libros Libertad 2009
Paperback 9 x 6 in
106 pages
ISBN: 9780981073569
$14.95
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Sometimes words are ghosts dancing with myth and memory. Greek-Canadian poet Manolis demonstrates this in Impulses, his new collection of poems. His poetry springs from a congenital intimacy with a culture and its history. In essence, we are before a poetic glance that is also a revolving metaphor encircling feelings from a Mediterranean philosophy.
Poets tend to be witnesses of paradox. In recreating them it’s not a compromise between logic and rational; it’s an absolute nouveau reality. With this new book, Manolis tells us that poetry is an affirmation of the soul, a witness for the dream. Fine poetry, there is.
~ Eduardo Bettencourt Pinto
Impulses conjures a mosaic of old world images, tiled with colours and dilemmas from the present. Manolis ransacks his classical Greek roots, and the cosmopolitan now, to find some meaning for his modern existence. He wrestles with such timeless subjects as the value of human life, innocence and aging.
These poems move with contrasting moods, as eroticism is juxtaposed with isolation, and intimacy is wedged between dark humour and sheer outrage.
~ Apryl Leaf
Excerpt
PEARL
Agony of pearl yearning
for your hand to polish it
with pain and white
loving arms nude
silence of the boat’s keel
broken voice of violins arouse
my ears and
gulls’ call mutes
your leg touching the water
like a small oar affecting
absolution the sun peeks
through two clouds and you
just let go of your hat to arms
of the soft-spoken wave
WORDS
Words said on moonlit nights
just before we separated
just words
forgotten amid the flowers
of ancient gardens
words that appear in distracted hours
on the crystal surface of memory
as if they were said moments ago
verbiage
and the nails on the wall
change color each time
you repaint over them
but should you
grind them back to steel
shade of blue like pain
when you drive them through
the palms of the martyr
red fleshy when
you quench your thirst in blood?
FOUNTAIN
Bright eyes of the heroes fledging
and shoe-less feet splash
in the fountain
yet to be honored champions
who haven’t managed to explore
their hatred in front of throngs
on tv monitors, in the mourner’s tears
nothing moves as slow as history
in this parched world
that thirsts for rain and green olive
leaves
aspirations of a day
born red in the eyelids of the terrorist
and you said —
there’s nothing here for us
only a yellow death
and our desire for glory
RELIEF
What a relief spring is over
and the soldiers with their rifles
spouting sunlight through
their barrels left. They came
in the midst of April as if there wasn’t
any other way for the spring
to come but with soldiers holding
rifles What a relief frost is over
and the chickadee dreams
on another nest of another chick
or two just another reason for
the red jib to unfurl just another
reason for the white chapel
to be repainted in whitewash
Manolis 