Poems (The Lithopedion, Nefeli publishings)

*

Nobody will be mad at you if you die.

*

THE PERCEPHONE COMPLEX

She doesn't remember when

She can't say how

At all events, at some point

She fell in love with her daughter

Now she wishes nothing would ever change

That she might hold her there forever

The soft little body

unmoving and slumberous

with its tiny mouth half opened

on her nipple.

Translated by Kostantinos Matsoukas

*

Speaker A: Myself dead, will I still be myself?

Speaker B: What kind of a question is this? Stop it.

Speaker A: No, no, I'm just saying. Is someone who has died still oneself?

Translated by Kostantinos Matsoukas

*

Little lead soldier: biographical note

Stone or petrified tree.

When she was a child, she and her sister had

a hospital for small animals.

For years, she served as an act at a touring show:

she performed the “Big Joke”.

Inbetween military commands

she will go on hunger exercises

or relate to you her story.

Translated by Theodoros Chiotis for Futures; Poetry of the Greek Crisis

*

TIN SOLDIER

Attentioooon

Left shoulder, Arms

Attentioooon

Left shoulder

The first movement to lose its meaning

when I had to live for years as if made of tin

was that of feeding

The arc of the raised hand

from plate to mouth

Attentiooon

Left shoulder

Left shoulder, I said

Left shoulder

You? Have you ever seen anyone so diminished, their clothing looks like it's hanging on a nail?

- I don't know what to say about myself. When I was a kid, me and my sister we had a pet hospital. There, I've introduced myself.

- I took some pills once, you said. I almost died...

And you said it like “It's Monday” or “Where did you go for summer?”

Drop by drop, metastatically, with the slow inexorable power of a stalagmite, I was petrifying. I don't know what the theater troupe was we were on tour with, what it was called. Only thing I recall is the rusty tailgate of the pickup truck shutting behind my head. We bumped along some dirt road for ages. I imagine the fuggy dust more than I actually remember it:

Ladies and gentlemen! Do welcome!

A unique spectacle!

For tonight only!

With us: The stone, The Fossilized Tree or

simply The Great Jest!

No kids swung from my branches.

No birds rested in my branches.

No morning dew dampened my branches.

Ladies and gentlemen!

A poet is someone who hears his own voice deafeningly inside his head!

Ladies and gentlemen, think about it!

The fate of the statue is the anticipation of being liberated from the rock!

Translated by Kostantinos Matsoukas

*

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO DIE?

When you are and then you are no more.

*

Petrol station under the merciless sun in the middle of nowhere

The things that must be done at a petrol station are endless.If you had ever lived at a petrol station you would know. First you have to meticulously wash the thick dust off objects which will be inevitably buried under even thicker dust. To take a thing from here and take it there where you have taken it a thousand times before and from there to here and from here to there. To tighten a bolt with care.

And when you are done with all of these,

to sit

on that chair which always creaks under your weight

and to look at

the endless straight line

from which nothing ever came.

Translated by Theodoros Chiotis for Futures; Poetry of the Greek Crisis

*

THE VOID

His wife died on him

and he went back to his village and brought another wife.

*

THE CAUSE OF THE EMACIATION

She is thin, extremely thin He by her side is far too close to her He peers insistently into her eyes She avoids his gaze She is thin, so thin that next to her, he looks bulky and clumsy He looks big She very small They have the same eyes He is her father She looks the other way He is scrutinizing her Under the pressure of his gaze she is slowly shrinking She will, after some time, be reduced to a dot at the edge of the chair The dot and her dad He brings her something to drink She does not as much as look at it He insists He searches for her gaze The approval of her gaze She does not grant it He pushes the cup closer to her He tells her something She neither looks not makes an answer A short while later they will leave The dot leading the way Her father Following The cup untouched

Do you see?

Translated by Kostantinos Matsoukas

*

AND I'VE BEEN LIVING WITH THIS EVER SINCE

which didn't happen

when it should have happened

and now that it's about to happen

it can't happen any more.

*

MOTHER'S LOVE

The mother crushes the daughter's knees

First one

Then the other

Then, she runs a series of tests

She places the daughter in the lotus position

“Get up” she tells her

“But I can't” answers the daughter

The mother lifts her by the armpits

Gets her standing then suddenly pulls away her hands

She repeats the test two-three times

The daughter collapses every time like a rag doll.

Then the mother takes the daughter in her arms

“My darling” she says

“My sweet darling”

so, then

- what to do? -

I will be

your crutch from now on”.

Translated by Kostantinos Matsoukas

*

THE BLACK HOLE

I am thirteen years old.

My grandfather died at thirty-five.

So did my uncle.

My father is thirty.

He has

five years left.

His mouth is a black hole.

His throat is a black tunnel.

His innards a black cave.

My father has swallowed the mine.

And so the mine eats him from the inside.

Nobody ever got away from the mine

But one day – very soon –

I'll say

“I don't want to die at 35 like my father”

I'll say

“I am fit, I've brains, I'm good with my hands, I can make it”

I'll get on a bus

get to a big city

A few months later

nearly starved, sleepless and broke

I'll be back on the bus

On that day you wont wring a word out of me

And I wont take my eyes

Off the black asphalt

Out of shame that you might see in my gaze

The gaze of someone

Coming back to die at the mine.

Translated by Kostantinos Matsoukas

*

In the aftermath of the battle of Waterloo, profiteers started extracting the teeth of the dead soldiers or the heavily wounded, for dentures to be made for the prosperous men and women of the British middle class. Because the men who fell at Waterloo were of a very young age and therefore had excellent sets of teeth, the dentures of Waterloo were in very high demand.

WATERLOO TEETH

[Fallen with his face in the mud]

So this is what these Waterloos are for?

Just so I bite the bitter dust

And my pearly whites go

To some toothless hag

In Islington?

Translated by Kostantinos Matsoukas

*

PORTRAIT OF PERSEPHONE or THE DILEMMA

The daughter loves the mother loves the mother so that she practically worships the mother the daughter so loves the mother that she hates the mother the daughter hates the mother because she loves the mother so that the love for the mother doesn't let the daughter love doesn't let the daughter breathe the love for the mother doesn't let the daughter live.

Translated by Kostantinos Matsoukas

*

Speaker A: Where are you? I can't see you.

Speaker B: I know. It doesn't matter. Can you feel me holding your hand?

Speaker A: Yes.

Translated by Kostantinos Matsoukas

Older poetry work (2007-2009)

The Works of Men

They live among rocks

and turn into stones

Into water,

that rain should not peck them

For they

have no other skin to change

except that

inside them.

Translated by Yiannis Goumas

*

Rose-Coloured Fear

It was always me.

The amusing, melancholy tree

But Asiya-khan was not my mistress

It was for you

I lit

the stars in winter.

Translated by Yiannis Goumas

*

Farewell My Concubine

Mother,

The water is iced.

The wind

is stronger than the tide.

Translated by Yiannis Goumas

*

PHANTASMAGORIA

I

So far so good

With the missing extremity

The phantom limb

Now what

II

The wind howled all night long

The house shot through with holes

Constantly tried to cover you up

And the covers kept slipping on the floor

Made as if to caress you

But with what

III

This is a long journey ahead of us

And maybe because at heart I remain

that «little girl without a leg

holding onto a cane» I call out for you

And you are nowhere to be seen

I trace your outline

Though you are not there

As if this verdant place of ours

Was just a mirage

To start with

ΙV

This is why I would like

« Just for tonight, doctor, if possible

to take my hand home with me»

Just for tonight if possible

to set up standing

with some dignity

this crippled thing I am

Because love

requires efficiency

and makes no discounts.

Translated by Kostantinos Matsoukas

*

Fairy Tale

Should you ever leave, said the Fox,

I'll miss your laughter

and the body's heat in mid-winter.