25.5.2014 • Fantasy on the Waste Land (I)

[25η Μαΐου, στο δρόμο για το Ρόττερνταμ]

Ο Απρίλης είν' ο πιο άκαρδος μήνας
Ανακατεύει τα νεκρά λουλούδια με λάσπη ζωντανή
Παγώνει τις εστίες και ξεραίνει το χώμ' απ' τη βροχή
Αδράττει ρίζες με τη βία της άνοιξης
Σ' τις τυλίγει γύρω απ' το λαιμό
Και σταματάει το χρόνο μέχρι το καλοκαίρι
Το Μάη το αίμα παγώνει
Δείχνει τα χρώματά του
(κόκκινο, πράσσινο, κυανό,
κίτρινο, ανθρακί)
Πάνω στα πρόσωπα των θνητών ενώ
Τα πτώματα χλωμιάζουν και σκληραίνουν μες στα λουλούδια
Κι ο Ιούνης έρχεται γεμάτος δώρα κι υποσχέσεις κενές
Γεμάτος δόξα και καλοκαίρι
Κι άλλα μέλλοντα άδεια και κούφια
Και τον Ιούλη απλώνεται η ψυχή στην καυτήν άμμο κι ανασαίνει
Ήρεμα και βαθειά
Τη ζεστή αρμύρα.

[the 25th of May, on the train to Rotterdam]

April is the cruellest month
mixing dead flowers in mud still living
freezing hearths in place and drying up the rained-on soil
seizing the roots like violent Spring
coiling them all round your neck
and suffocating you till summer
in May blood congeals
shows its colours
(red green cyan
yellow anthrax iron)
on the faces of mortals while
carcasses grow pale and hard among the flowers and the thorns
and June, June
comes bearing gifts and empty vows
full glorious summerlike as the bright dawn
and other hollow things to come

and in July the soul spreads out its limbs on the mild-burning sand
and breathes
calmly
deeply
the warm briny breeze

6.5.2013 • Inside of me

to you—
whom to
I surrendered much too soon and
much too much—
hush

Inside of me,
like a buzzing bee-hive
like the thrumming of rolling pebbles
                   at the wake of a wave
like the water before tea
something is stopped as it wants
    to splash the horizon of words
Inside of me,
like the lips of a sobbing child
like the door to a tornado
something is stopping my trembling bones
                from becoming words
                  my trembling words from
being said
                   from spilling out
Inside of me, you are apples
and rose-petals and thorns
and red apples and red-rosepetals
and rosethorns
and thick brushstrokes
and lazy and harsh
           brushstrokes
And inside of me
you are
and you shout with your
          ringing voice
and you grimace with your
              imperfect
            perfectly emotive
lips, and
   cheeks, and
          eyes, and
                lips and
               blood-red
                           lips
and inside of me
I am at last
       again
      moved
        after all
         this time
and— feel— feel— and
feel—no just kiss me
just kiss me and it will
be alright, kiss me and
it will be alright
I promise I don’t know
                  shit but
it will be alright

5.5.2013 • We talked too much

to a certain very dear friend—
and partly, at first perhaps, to a misendeared aquaintance;
a transformation of address.

[We talked too much]

We talked so much
but I wanted to give you
                                      a poem
I wanted to ask you to
           hold me awhile
just for a little while

We talked so much
but I wanted to write
                          you a kiss
                         on your lips
with a mortal, fading ink
—we have no need for vows
me and you (nor anyone else)

We talked too much
though it will never
                 be enough
Even when it’s too much
it will never be enough

I wanted to draw a bird
                         in your eyes
                    your irises to fly
—maybe they will, it doesn’t
have to be me,
doesn’t have to be me
but I wanted it all the
                                    same

We talked too little
& too much
& only fleetingly embraced;
next time maybe I’ll ask.

29.1.2013 • Ghost world (Love is)

a skeletal finger
writhing through the cold
transparent mist
of our visceral routines

(heart pumping
translucent
blood flowing
lightless
warm)

it comes from pain
pain produces it
suffering infuses it
with little crystal shards
of fragmented dew
ah the evening dew
that makes me sigh anew
at every glance
given or taken

it comes from pity
mercy inspires it
thanks and gratefulness
fill it up
paradoxically icy water
engulfing icepacks
from within

an instant's gaze
give or take
and the tongue is inverted
the eyes rolled
like thunder
white and terrible

white
and terrible
like a new notebook
a beautiful bunch
of papers strung together
prettily immaculate
defiled with the first drop of ink

here here
have a peek
give some take some more
charity or mercy courteousness or politeness
crunched ice rises like carbon dioxide

If love be different to lust it is in this,
That lust is hot like red iron melting the snow,
While love is cold like butterflies and moths,
And moths in the dank cellar of forgotten wines.

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