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EXCAVATIONS, 1972

Words rolled from the mouth
and faded in the dark.

You look at the other side of today
and

the poetʼs statue rises
still warm, shaking off the dust.

Now it walks down Stadium Street
laughing aloud.

(The archeologists – the grave robbers
have taken to their heels, cursing.)

MERCURIAL TIME, The Sceptre Press, Knotting, Bedfordshire, 1978.

MIDDAY DREAM

– How many afternoons I slept alone
with my skin –

Splintered doors letting in
strips of gardens.
In the distance, just visible,
a girl is playing “The Last Post” on a bugle.
A dead man falls from the sky,
light as a feather.
He gets hitched onto the roof.

“Now they bury them deep, and itʼs raining.”

Itʼs raining.
Light rusts.
Itʼs stopped.
The girl just manages
to swallow her bugle.

Everything fades out.

A bell tolls frenziedly.

(Noon full of ink and stones.)

THE STAIRWAY

As you walk down a long
creaking stairway and the darkness
is humid and clings to your flesh,

suddenly
you falter
and come crashing down.
Around you lie oranges, watches and other
objects of daily use.

Lights and voices flare up
from various memories.

A siren is heard in the distance.

But no one comes, of course.

MERCURIAL TIME, The Sceptre Press, Knotting, Bedfordshire, 1978.

AGAIN THE RAIN

Itʼs not raining in here.
The sky is well nailed down.

Behind the upper dot
I watch you juggling with the balance.

That man passing now
wears his head for a hat.

The weather is again turning to rain.
The sky springs a leak.

I should have used indelible ink.

But a dry song will remain
to taunt you.

MERCURIAL TIME, The Sceptre Press, Knotting, Bedfordshire, 1978.

LANDSCAPE

The landscape was highly idyllic.
You were stroking my slain hand.
Black gold-glittered in the distance
full of promises.

The city trapped in the fog
hang like an empty sack.

Night in the pashaʼs half-gnawed
garden, we searched for butterflies
with a torch.

DANGER IN TOWN

Tonight no poems are being written.

The madman got away with a gun
and is shooting to kill.
Everything points to him, but
no one sees him.

I run – we run.
I stumble over myself.

The poet feigns
a fruit-bearing tree
to escape the woodman.

MERCURIAL TIME, The Sceptre Press, Knotting, Bedfordshire, 1978.

THE ESSENCE OF THINGS

Dim corridors.
Built-in doors.
You run after someone to talk to.
You splash in water.
You bump against tied hands.
Millions of lights blaze
over your head.
They go out.
Then they aim at your neighbour
and fall on him like crows.
A third one tries to weep.
………………………………….

Philosophising is all very well – Iʼm not saying –
so are orderly parks, even antiquities,
but life here is drawing to a close,
as a lake recedes with the advance of draining works.

And a mute white colour
begins to cover us, hard as stone.

MERCURIAL TIME, The Sceptre Press, Knotting, Bedfordshire, 1978.

MONOLOGUE, OR MY ARM IN APRIL

My armʼs extension
is a soundless afternoon.
You could even say:
a stone thrown in the weeds.

Metaphysics aside, however,
my arm proper is
a line vertical to my body
which at times becomes an exclamation mark.

I can see it now amputated
under a bridge, fly-infested,
having forgotten how to open a door.

Its finest moments
still endure, when it lies dormant
on a knee.
But at all at once it gives a start,
jerks up and runs away
barking threateningly.

MERCURIAL TIME, The Sceptre Press, Knotting, Bedfordshire, 1978.

TIMELESS

The slain afternoon is starting to smell.
So is summer.

An open wound is the sun
and not a word about my love.
Thereʼs a blank in my memory.
A field, so to speak, where
the oddest things are to be found:
from empty tincans to dreams.

Otherwise I lead a normal life.

Only at times fear,
that domestic animal,
gets underfoot and creaks.

MERCURIAL TIME, The Sceptre Press, Knotting, Bedfordshire, 1978.

ASCENSION

Now I climb onto the ceiling
and the day burns my face.
I cry red tears.
Poems fall out of my pockets.
A few burst and darken the night
even more.
Others lie forgotten on the ground.
(Doubtless, after many years
theyʼll remember the explosion –
their function, that is –
and will alter the population density.)
Now I climb onto
the ceiling
like a jet of water,
like a thirsty eye.

Once Iʼm on it
– monochrome butterflies will spring
from my blood –

A strong wind sweeps away my bones.

Light.

Bright, warm light, a very bird,
will stick to my armpit.

Below they wait
with open mouths.

MERCURIAL TIME, The Sceptre Press, Knotting, Bedfordshire, 1978.

THE NIGHT IS WHITE

To Takis Sinopoulos

The other room is a distant land.
It has suns, woods and happy riverboats.
The other room is a ravine
in my mind.
I make as if to enter it and find myself in here.
Here, without breathing apparatus,
hemmed in by books and furniture.
The river bursts through the doors
and brings in the dead of the Balkan Wars.
Wild Slav songs startle my eyes.
You, of course, exist and sleep off your other life,
almost dead and much loved.
Airplanes fly across the ceiling
throwing down angels – as well as
Guevara in the garden –

I rush out and a sunray
beheads me as if I was a traitor.

MERCURIAL TIME, The Sceptre Press, Knotting, Bedfordshire, 1978.

IN A SACK

Youʼll fit into that green poem
like it or not.

Itʼs warm in there.
Youʼll find grass, a sky and some dreaming.
Besides, the poem is of glass
and youʼll be able to see out.
You must realize
why I insist so.

Unless you want to share my fate.

– And now that Iʼm talking to you
Iʼm nowhere –

MERCURIAL TIME, The Sceptre Press, Knotting, Bedfordshire, 1978.

RAIN AND THE PRESENT

Itʼs raining, like in Russian films.

The sky is fractured.
Down come generals and devils.
I hear the frozen lights
of cars descending.

The smoke of your songs
doesnʼt impassion the official.
He brings the night and lights it
that he may warm his beard.

Youʼre scared.

If the rain lasts much longer
a bird will fade out.

MERCURIAL TIME, The Sceptre Press, Knotting, Bedfordshire, 1978

THE WORLD

Canticles girdle me like a snake
and the empty plain, my mind,
opens out like a fan.
I shiver.
I touch your lotus, your belly,
and see my heirs crossing
the plain and the river, and smiling at me
indulgently for never having managed a crime.
Surging light.
Surging water.
Whichever comes first will sear me.
Green humidity, your voice calls me
again through wild music
with velvet drums, many drums.

One by one everything disperses.
Only your madness, a white elephant, remains.
You rise and roam panoplied among the throng.
Trees unfurl in the air – you take care not to step
on a single leaf –
On the other side passes Kariotakis* wearing a dark suit
and a clean collar.
This complete balance has fatigued you.
I draw the curtain, make a sudden movement
with my pinkie,
and turn the world topsy-turvy.
Just for fun. For your sake, that is.
So that you wonʼt be sad and lower your eyes
to the real world, the underworld.
*Konstantinos Karyotakis: Famous Greek poet who committed suicide in 1928 at the age of thirty-two.
From TA APROOPTA (The Unforeseen), Kedros 1975

SKETCH FOR A STORY
(Montage)

Our inner look is a cloud that constantly changes shape.
ANDREAS EMBIRICOS

3

The pedigree poodle called Alexander raced down the stairs and out into the street. The traffic flowed like a river. Alexander, without a leash, shut his eyes for a moment (he envisaged a green open space with trees and he pissing carefree under the sky), then fell under the wheels. He managed to see the first car run over him. Then nothing. He remained or rather he became paste on asphalt. His skin, torn and bloody, became insensible to patting and kicks.

5

Hospital of fair angels. My favourite poet, hit by blood in the heart, lies on water wearing only a Y-front. At the edge of the bed my younger brother and I are watching summer. A lady from France is talking to us about surrealism. You are asleep among rushes near a lake full of soldiers.

15

The song uncoils into a noose for the condemned manʼs neck. And the condemned man may be reprieved at the last moment. But you, singing a song, are certain to die with a fag in your mouth (unaware that it is your last), babbling as you are about daily trivia, political economy and public economy. Youʼll drop dead with cigarette aglow, scarf in midair, and booze splashed all over your trousers. Your voice will threaten no one any more, and your final word will be a stone thrust into the ground.

17

The heros of our narrative, beau and belle, met thanks to a cow. To be precise: they happened to live in southern Europe, in the east end of town, and beau told belle that he loved the way cows look at you and drool. Also, that they swim across rivers – swim so well, you can mistake them for horses. It was love at first sight. And during siesta time they slept together on a low, narrow, wooden bed, and the cow dried up their feet, ruminating the silence with eyes shut.

25

Artesian waters the darkness I drink; and words come out as little blind dogs. Helpless, cuddly puppies both black and white. Those that escape from being dumped into an empty lot grow in a matter of hours. They become Alsatians this tall. Ravenous and thirsty, they recognize no one. Thus we wait for summer to pass and for October to arrive. If I can keep alive until then the words “lifeguard,” “my two eyes,” and “green your hair,” Iʼll be saved. And I wonʼt have to mutter in desolation with this pack of dogs.

28

The landscape shifted to the left, emitting smoke/fire, and began whistling as it went. Itʼs leaving at whirlwind speed. Others have noticed it without suspecting that you, too, had a hand in realizing this movement, this music. Basically, you must control the geographic position of your home and your life, as a pelican knows of the happiness hidden in the pouch under its lower bill, full of fish. Troublesome shoes take you elsewhere, you lose sight of the landscape and your bearing, and you donʼt know where you are now and tomorrow.

32

In a rapid voice, as though hit with a hammer.
TAKIS SINOPOULOS

We all drink milk. Milk is good for the complexion. For the skin, that is. Eyeless swine. Inquisitors and whores in the dark. You have the monochrome societies on your side and write history to suit yourselves. Thus you eat the satiated dog and the pie. You do not fear a deluge, for you yourselves concoct the weather forecast. You foresee no revolution, for you yourselves are revolutionaries. Everything works like clockwork. Everything synchronized to blissful time, in this life and the next. But you tremble and panic when you see my hand poised on the switch that will drown you in light.

33

Again before me rush horses and trains, and people run with them. They trespass on my property, take what they want, speak indecipherable words. One of them in fact stops and looks at me and makes a brief political speech. Everyone and everything depart for an unknown destination. You think: Might they all go and leave us alone at last? Then again: What have I to do with all this? And to think that youʼre holding Aladdinʼs lamp without being able to do anything. You rub it and nothing comes out of it. Simply because itʼs just an ordinary lamp, and shortly the oil will finish, and youʼll be in a strange place without a foothold.

37

I piss on noonday means I donʼt intend dying with you. You attempt to conceal the angel from others. You eat the angel. In the morning you go by whistling, and his wings come out of your mouths. A murdered pimp is also a pimp in afterlife for a breath of paradise. Everything around is flying; only my saddened self canʼt find a piece of rock, an inch of ground, from where to take off. I close my eyes to light and see the cricket maddening the apricots with iron singing.

38

Sterilized hands remove you forcibly from sleep. In the same scene a woman is crying, probably for the same reason. Folk songs dismantle the sky. A child reenters its scabbard, the womb. Soundless surgery commences with ultra-violet rays. Now no one is crying. Everything is level. You watch the boundless plain. A vast stretch to death and beyond. You sleep soundly with short green breaths and hives of chlorophyll in the armpits.

40

I canʼt fit into my body. I want to expand, to get away. I turn on the tap. Water flows. Night flows. I bend down to drink, to forget. I knock against my dead face. A voice flares up. Voice of silence. The flow of memory jerks me back into my body. As Iʼm writing, the moon disappears between your legs and the grass grows wild, red as fire. All else is wrapped in glass wool. Only your hair creaks and grows, ignoring political systems and trigonometry.

42

None of the images you see today have credit. Theyʼre worthless. But what does today mean? Today is night, and how I manage only my cigarette and I know.
Rotten songs.
Rotten cans.
Rotten ideas.
Only the nightʼs fresco knows what the word danger implies at all times. Donʼt think the world is smiling. It merely bares its teeth.

43

The eye found a corner to lay its eggs. Summer full of gnats, earthquakes, revelations. In the corridor a frozen lamp illuminates a profile and a voice: Is anyone at home? Anyone at home? The profile sticks to the wall with gaping mouth. Outside the sun knocks a statue on the head. Voices behind bitter orange trees, cracking of heads on roads. Petrol gushes in public urinals. Money fills our cisterns. No water anywhere. The eye found a corner and laid its eggs – images of the future.

44

A cigarette goes down easier when you listen to music. Sundays are clouds of smoke, and I lose sight of people. There are, of course, islands suitable for neurasthenics, but thatʼs no solution. Nor what you say: that only the setting of the table and the scribbling pencil should be heard. But what can my cigarette and I (which forcibly learnt how to pronounce silence) do before this perpendicular arrangement? Shouting doesnʼt achieve anything: you only awake the stool pigeons.

45

All movements planned. The fondling, the knife, the strangulation, the frigid look. But mainly the so-called political and intellectual liberties. Planned, like those silly country scenes with the little white houses, the windmill, the sea, the setting sun, and the farmer with a donkey laden with fruit. Fruit, then; but the wolves have taken liberties and in summer swoop down upon houses. The room is full of wolves. There are about forty-five of them – if I can count correctly. They stink and growl. Now they are telling jokes and laughing. I remove the mask of one, and he is even more wolfish beneath. And they donʼt want fruit, but meat.

IRON (UK)
MERCURIAL TIME, The Sceptre Press, Knotting, Bedfordshire, 1978.

FINGERNAILS

These fingernails will surely drive me crazy.
I cut them and they grow at once – especially now
in spring they are insufferable –
They say: Long nails – long voyages.
To hell with travelling. I want to know
where I am now.

They keep on growing, fill the room
get caught in doors, bother me when I eat
when I go to the loo, out on the street.
But what is worse, I canʼt hug you.
Whenever I go to touch you
they entwine and scratch you.

I stick them in my pockets
and they tear through
the trousers.

Youʼll tell me: thereʼs enough trouble in the world
without fingernails.
There they go again, growing like the night.
Iʼm thinking of chopping off my hands to find peace.
But doubtless theyʼll sprout on my back –
theyʼll find an outlet –
But what is worse, I canʼt
hug you.

MERCURIAL TIME, The Sceptre Press, Knotting, Bedfordshire, 1978.

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