10.8.2012 • The Game

The Game

There is a game, no, more a sport, where the throwing of balls is of paramount importance. Yet it has nothing to do with all the sports and games that are commonly known, such as football, soccer, basketball and so forth; this game is unique. And rare, for very few know the rules. But it is more of a game, as I said, than a sport, and so competition runs like iron in the veins, thin yet vital, metallic, certain. In this game there are two teams, or in fact more like three, I don't quite remember the exact number, but the world never goes by numbers, the numbers go by the world. A player of the first team throws the ball, in a chaotic fashion, or not, but at any rate so that its course is not straight. Then another, of the second team, throws the other ball, always on the ground, so that it overcomes the first only by a little, passing above it, or slightly below as it were, and coming to a stop by it on the grass, for this game is always played on the grass, and if no grass is there then hardly is the game ever held, should the grass fail say, fail to appear, but everyone goes away or starts playing another game, a more sportslike game perhaps, which requires less of its players and of its grass. Then a third player, possibly from the third team if there is one, throws his own ball which must rest in between the other two balls, and if he succeeds he gets to start the next round. This process continues until everyone has failed or everyone has succeeded, or no-one has done either, which is just as well since failure or success are very vaguely defined in this game, so that competition and a noble spirit are paramount in being motivated to play it. Let alone learn it, for it is not a game apprehensible by logic or by experience, but only by self-transcendence, in that way it is not quite dissimilar to God. Then after everything is completely in place, or out of place, or at any rate when everyone has had enough, or rather more often more than enough, when everyone has as they say quite had it, then does the game begin.

8.8.2012 • terra cotta

terra cotta

sweat is so cunning
he thought
so able
as he watched it deftly pick its way
through the landscape of his rough skin
a hue of terracotta burned into it by the tireless sun

but he too had been tireless
he too had been able and cunning
and the mountain also was scorched earth
and their distant monarch
their impotent god
all-powerful in his monotonous course
was the same for them all

and unlike the sweat, he had always reached his destination
at the top of the mountain
always striving against the odds
and never succumbing
never defeated
never evaporated into nothingness
mid-way

and so he took a slow lungful of the still hot air
and pushed on
cart bricks and all
up the barren summery slope

uphill (the island wasn't of the size
that might accomodate any real mountains)
the house awaited half-built
a disharmonic protrusion in the dull brownish scene

his steps (it was always like that)
started off slowly
then sped up rather abruptly
then slowed gradually
as the road winded tirelessly upwards
and the man still and still resumed his course

in the sky (as often happened) a bird appeared
rather close
too close for comfort
a big black bird
and every time the bird appeared
he shivered and hid his face in his palms
and let the cart slide jerkily onto his torso
the support of his hands suddenly and unreasonably gone
and the bird come
come bird
come black bird
come closer come claw at my eyes
the little voice seemed to whisper
and the bird cawed terribly
terribly louder
and louder

on the ground (as sometimes) an ant was tracing the cart's
tracks in the rocky dirt
the ant was disproportionately large and friendly
its head alone was like a golf ball
its length exceeded his large palm's
and it licked the wheel now and then
with a long black tongue
as if to say
that the action of the wheel dug up a pleasant mineral
perhaps some sort of stimulant
and that the ant was very happy
almost intoxicated with the substance
its tongue looked harsh
but seemed to be soft

6.8.2012 • έλα

έλα

είπε το κορίτσι
έλα εδώ
είπε το αγόρι
έλα έλα είπε το κορίτσι
και πήγαν μαζί
το βράδυ κοιμήθηκαν μαζί
και το πρωί ήταν χειμώνας
ήπιαν ζεστό μαύρο τσάι
μαύρο σαν τη νύχτα
κι ο ήλιος σκαρφάλωνε τον ουρανό
σαν το φεγγάρι μες στο τσάι
και τα φυλλαράκια σα δέντρα
φυλλοβόλα το φθινόπωρο
τα ρεύματα του αέρα τα πηγαινόφερναν
δεξιά-αριστερά
το απόγευμα έτρεξαν μες στην πόλη
μέσα στα χωράφια
μες στο χιόνι
που απ’ τον ήλιο ιρίδιζε λίγο

το βράδυ
έκαναν μπάνιο
μαζί
άγγιξέ με
είπε το κορίτσι
έδειχνε σαν
κάτι ανείπωτο
το αγόρι κοίταξε
άγγιξε κατά λάθος τη σωλήνα του ζεστού
είπε ά! στο διάολο
συγγνώμη είπε
εγώ φταίω
που σε άγγιξα
ενώ ήξερα
ότι έκαιγες τόσο

6.8.2012 • woman crossing the street

It seems we are entering into an era of narrative poems. It may very well be as brief as the narratives of same, but it definitely does, with two poems to its tally after two days passed, have the air of an era.

Woman crossing the street

A woman crossed the street
but it was as if the street crossed her
as she walked on the warm damp asphalt
her footsteps formed gradual tracks on its malleable freshness
her feet left harshly their gradual tracks on its black infantile softness
like a baby’s skull
which pressed against firmly
changes shape and morphs into
another mammal
a bird
or a reptile
with oblique eyes
the woman walked on and the street passed her disinterestedly
trudging heavily below her feet
she heaved each leg before the next
with unequal toil
and sweat trickled through the trenches heavy across her face
false witnesses to inexistent years
—the girl appeared obviously older than she was
I could see it in her eyes, her inexorable eyes—
the pavement reached her with a crash

5.8.2012 • Mr. M.S.E.’s Moustache

Of Mr. M.S.E.’s Moustache

Sir, your moustache, it is not a contemptible moustache at all. Indeed, if ever I were to say anything whatever of your moustache, it would have to be something rather in the way of praise, if at the very least of a relative praise, taking into account the tendencies that pervade our current world and your rather young age, which both would and do normally obstruct the evolution of such a moustache as yours, or comparative, as to your peers in age and profession who seldom if ever cultivate such a dignified and respectable moustache, a moustache as it were which is worth of mention, at least when the discussion inevitably (as it does, does it not?) strays into the rather shady if not murky grounds of facial hair. And indeed within the subject of well-worn facial hair it must be said that a moustache well worn (if I may once again use this expression) is the rarest of all cases, and especially so in this day and age. And thus one so concerned at times, and so neglecting at others, yet so conscious and so various in his situation (a state of affairs which, though prompted by the interchange between carelessness and care, brings unparalleled experience and a much refined taste) as to the matter of the grooming of the beard, one so seasoned (I say) as I in the matter of beards would have no choice but to offer you a word if not two of congratulation, and so honouring my honest and most firm opinion on the matter at hand, allow me to do so now in this brief yet meaningful discourse on the same matter, that is facial hair in general and moustaches in particular, or to be even more specific almost to the point of candour, your own moustache, which as I did allude to before is rather remarkable in its condition and a clear indication of an especially refined taste on your behalf.

5.8.2012 • Man in the Rain

Man in the Rain

There  was a man stooping in the rain
He had lost his keys in the rainwater
And while he thought he was looking for them
It accumulated in his coat
A darkly yellow raincoat
Obscured perhaps
and its colour deformed
by the rain
which fell gray against the black sky
The moon
a pale reminder of some impending ill
shone almost round through the granite clouds

The man's hat was black
Perhaps the kind of black that originates in a brown by day
or perhaps just that, black
And his eyes were nowhere to be seen
The rain fell like elongated spheres through a sea of emptiness
It seemed to replace every once clearly defined grain of the asphalt
with its own fluid inconstant shapes
The shape of droplets distilled backwards through time
to their perfect, immobile and imaginary state

The man stood there
looking faceless at the falling water
quiet
still
calm
only his lips spasming a little with a silent cry
CALL ME CALL ME BY MY NAME
call me by name and I'll respond
call and I may reply
the lips cried in a calm inexistent twitch
and the man slowly sank into the pitch-black earth
his eyes ever staring
blank, relentless
at him from every inch
of the shallow ground