The facts. Just the facts. And nothing but the facts.

Deep August.

On some island

yellow, scrawny

I struggle with words

english and rounded.

Conversations dipped

in sea water; sand

in the bowels of Penguin

modern classics.

Hotel room.

Two childish, small frames,

too out of scale.

The plaster peels off the walls.

It bothered me at first

it soothes me now.

I shouldn’t be asking for more.

The sheets are thin, transparent almost

cool in the afternoon breeze.

The bed creaks.

On the desk,

four empty bottles of water

in a line.

An unused ashtray. A pen.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.

The poplar trees outside molt.

White fluff on white everything.

Cicadas explode

on paper like loaded words

I dare not play putty with.

Roget’s Thesaurus.

A grey cat that photographs well

on the yellow wooden chair.

A man;

American and cultured and clean

but most of all a lover

of everything well-crafted and original –

            books shoes voices

            a certain clean light in the afternoon.

Leather sandals

Khakis

Soap

Boxes as categories to arrange the world

The marble under the bathroom door

is cracked and loose.

I have to put it back together every time I forget

not to step on it.

The first day, the shower hardly trickled.

This morning it poured.

I washed

and washed

made the bed

pulled the sheets

folded the blanket

puffed the pillows

placed them

on top of each other

everything in place.

The room crisp

almost un–lived in

light

wood

cotton

aloof marble

water

cedarwood

lemon

fig

rounded english words

fizzle and evaporate

and an unexpected fleeting scent of winter

brings to mind upstate New York

In Between / Ταλάντευση

     

Taught, like thick and soaked ropes, trying

to bring Aegean shores together,

and like those shorelines which appear

and disappear at the edge of horizons,

back and forth my untamable heart is lost and found

in salt-thick currents that open and heal all wounds.

And my body, the sun, light –

rises over one shore, setting on the other,

a sliver of moon peel embracing a star through dawn.

And the still-heard prayers robed in blue

remind of summers, the dried red earth,

when I could see the unknown shore

but only from a distance.

My foregone land, I’m since suspended

between the hope and fear that you might lure me

once again, unexpectedly, sweetly.

I kept your songs to fill my nights but all that I was left with

were muezzins’ chants for lullabies, and a void

bottomless as the sea, a sadness. And then

the bitterness of iodine that heals all wounds.

(Trans: Adrianne Kalfopoulou and the author)

-----

Σαν τα χοντρά και τα βρεγμένα

σχοινιά,  που το Αιγαίο, τεντωμένα, πάνε να ενώσουν,

και τη στεριά που μια σιμώνει και μια αφήνεται

στου ορίζοντα το βάθος –

έτσι η καρδιά μου, πέρα-δώθε, βάρκα αδούλωτη,

χάνεται κι επιστρέφει, με το κύμα και τ’αλάτι

που ανοίγουν κι επουλώνουν τις πληγές.

Και το κορμί μου ήλιος, φως,

σηκώνεται στη μια στεριά και δύει

στην άλλη, σα λευκή απ’το φεγγάρι φλούδα,

μ’ένα αστέρι αγκαλιά μέχρι να ξημερώσει.

Κι οι προσευχές που ακόμα λέν, ντυμένες στα γαλάζια,

σαν κοκκινόχωμα ξερό, θυμίζουν καλοκαίρια

που μόνο απ’ αντίκρυ έβλεπα τις άγνωστες ακτές.

Απαρνημένη γη, έκτοτε αιωρούμαι

ελεύθερη, με την ελπίδα και το φόβο

μήπως γλυκάνεις ξαφνικά. Και τα τραγούδια σου

τα φύλαξα, νυχτέρια να γεμίσουν,

μα μού ‘μειναν νανούρισμα μονάχα αμανέδες

κι ένα κενό, σαν πέλαγος απύθμενο, μια λύπη·

κι ύστερα η πίκρα απ’το ιώδιο που θρέφει τις πληγές.

Mr. Nietzsche / Ο κύριος Νίτσε

A lack of a system is all very well,

Mr. Nietzsche

    (and so damned honest – no doubt about it –

    since the mind is such a muddle

    and the uttered thoughts are weapons –

    sharp, inadequate)

but was all that perhaps merely an excuse

so that others could do the dirty work?

For nothing is more exasperating

than a slothful hand

and a bunch of people demanding

   an explanation

   an explanation!

so you end up saying what you didn’t want to say at all

so you end up forgetting

and end up getting muddled.

And what’s more, they blame you

for your lack of rhythm and clarity, for your lack of weapons.

As if the world were a well-tuned clock.

So – you said – it’s  better to write just as it comes

and let others pull the chestnuts out of the fire.

I know what I want to say,

I know what I believe in. How well I know

what pitfalls are in store for lovers

of truth and clarity.

Whoever wants to find out

has to go it alone.

I can’t be bothered with plumbing the depths of my mind.

(To say nothing of this world.)

Weapons only lead to pointless and brutal wars.

(translated by Richard Pierce & Stamatis Pollenakis)

-----

Ωραία και καλή η απουσία συστήματος

κε Νίτσε

(και ειλικρινέστατη -δε λέω-

μιας και το μυαλο είναι κουβάρι μπερδεμένο

κι οι όποιες ειπωμένες σκέψεις, όπλα –

αιχμηρά· ανεπαρκή)

αλλά μήπως όλα αυτά ήταν μια δικαιολογία

για να κάνουν όλη τη βρωμοδουλειά οι άλλοι;

Γιατί τι πιο εκνευριστικό

από ένα χέρι οκνηρό

κι ένα μάτσο ανθρώπους που απαιτούν

να τους εξηγήσεις

να τους εξηγήσεις!

μέχρι άλλα θες να πεις κι άλλα να λες

μέχρι που ξεχνάς

και μπερδεύεσαι.

Και σου τη λένε κι από πάνω που ρυθμό

και καθαρότητα δεν έχεις, οπλοστάσιο.

Λες κι είναι κόσμος καλοκουρδισμένο ρολογάκι.

Ας τα γράψω -είπες- καλύτερα, όπως μου ‘ρχονται

κι ας βγάλουν οι άλλοι το φίδι απ’ την τρύπα.

Εγώ ξέρω τι θέλω να πω,

ξέρω τι πιστεύω. Ξέρω εγώ ο κόσμος

τι παγίδες τρέφει για της αλήθειας

και της καθαρότητας τους λάτρεις.

Όποιος άλλος θε να μάθει

ας κάτσει μόνος του να βρει την άκρη.

Βαριέμ’ εγώ να εξηγώ τα βάθη του μυαλού μου.

(Χώρια του κόσμου τούτου).

Τα όπλα μόνο ανούσιους κι αιμοσταγείς πολέμους φέρνουν.

Ode to a coffee shop girl - take 1

sweet chocolate girl hair wrinkles sprinkled
on forehead. blonde. you bloom in my
mouth begonias froth on the window
sill. killing time in your coffee shop
is exquisite torture. your fingers
(a taste of warm bread coffee
beans just roasted my voice
caught in my throat)
inside of me

I moan of cappuccinos

West Brompton, SW6, April 8th, 2000

Ani Di Franco is scratching her guitar on the CD player
and I am sitting on a bamboo chair
on the third floor balcony
overlooking Stamford Bridge
greeting the trains passing behind the row of parked cars
between the blooming, serenely alive cemetery
and the greenery.
Breeze on my face, smelling of spring and promising summer.
The Norwegian women’s handball team
just won the European championships
on video.
Unintelligible laughing words mingled with bird songs.
Happiness.

The Box

where are you?
i am in this box.
it's called london.
most often than not it's exciting and huge
and mysterious
and filthy in a good way.

can you see me?
i think the sides are transparent. take a peek.

i know-
why don't you knock on one of my sides?
go on. i'll hear you.
knock.

what?
why can't you knock?
you're too far?
yeah. you might just be.
shame.

anyway, how have you been?
how is life outside the box?
oh. you have a box of your own?
oh, that's why you can't knock on my box!
that's funny.
and sad.

i wish that my box were walk-through.
so i can walk through.
duh.

you know, i could stop for a visit, we'd have a chat,
cup of coffee, that sort of thing.
we'd talk a while, look at each other's face.
yeah.
we could maybe,
just maybe,
be able to touch each other too.
that would be awesome.
i've no idea what that's like.
a box is a box.
you know what i mean?

so yeah, this is the box.
now that i think about it,
i don't think it's transparent at all.
i think it's reflective.
it reflects everything around it and is, hence, invisible!
ta-da!
aren't you proud of me for figuring that out?

you know what?
i would really like for you to be interested in my box.
it's a good box. solid. reliable.
keeps me sane.
has a bed, coffee machine, the works.
has me.
you don't have to get in the box to be interested in the box.

cause, you know, the box is alright and stuff
but,
like,
it's windowless.

and you're the only one who knows where the switch is.

so please turn it on.
it's getting dark.

America, wake up!

(Written after the 2000 pres. election, but still relevant)


I live in the unbearable franticness of life, exploding through ecstatic aortas and burnt mentalities. I am your eye when you cannot see and your ear when your earplugs are on vacation. I have a minimal wage and an idiotic labour tail that I gather between my capitalist feet. When I look at the mirror, it breaks. My elf-like pointed ears receive no transmission apart from the sleeping patterns of sleepless unconsciousness in the big city deal. My stock market beats somewhere around my pelvis and your prices are all counted. Puppets hanging in strings from my ears will entertain you as I go about my daily chores in the big bowl of panhuman erections. My telletuby belly sports a TV monitor out of which white men snoring give advise for the future of this ball of earth-nerves and sea-tissues, the occasional volcano spots covered up with the first lady’s essential doesn’t-rub-off make up.
Did you really think that philosophy could save you? You poor pathetic bastards of filthily unfounded rights-initiatives and you shameful politicians of greed? Did you really think that the beef factory called the system would ever produce a minced fillet ready and cooked on your table for future reference in the third world war of hate and food inadequacy? Did you really think that voting smells like flowers in the spring morning of your first love?
Bullshit! You get it all in a plastic orange bottle sporting “spring fresh” labels and in plastic bags containing squeaky dog toys. You get it all on rainbow stickers that peel off your windscreen at the first car wash and are never replaced, apart from the occasional ad of the harlot politician you’re going to vote for next coming election. You get it all in a world map made of paper manufactured by the hands of ten year olds, mentally disturbed from being beaten, fucked and beaten again for the glory of low prices and the temple of the West. If you are lucky, you can even get it in Star Trek episodes, in between raping planets by transferring humanity to inhuman aliens.
If you are lucky enough you are going to ache, you are going to cry your eyes out, because the mayonnaise started falling out of the sandwich of life and you suddenly realised that you’ve been tasting brown, long warms, glistening in their own shit, for your whole life. If you are lucky enough you’ll stroll down the street displaying “wanker” on your forehead, hoping that someone will wake up from their slumber and laugh or curse at you.
I am your head between your legs, you ostrich of a man, you harsh broom of a woman, you burnt stick of a child. I am your constipation, your leech, your meningitis, your cancer. I am your terror. I am your only hope.

Emptiness, IL, 60605

Return to me.

Casually.

As spring returns to winter every year

and in his cold embrace deposits thawning seeds

transforming darkness into light, with grace.



Return to me.

Poetically.

As if my arms your absence never felt

my light stays on at night for you to see

the window open to facilitate your breathing

my sheets your ever-calling exploratory sea.



Return to me.

Irrationally.

As if this world were not senteced to die

as if the years before us were lined with pregnant promises

as if our children could still plough and seed this blesséd earth.



Return to me.

Just this.

As if our lives would last forever -or

as if my dying breath were yours -and

up in heaven

all at once

the light you nourish in your womb

could give this world a chance.

A questa Serra

Suspended on a mile of steel

the night of the twelfth of June of the year two thousand and six

I’ve come to realize that the distance between Truth 




and human  understanding

is as long as the Brooklyn Bridge.

I’m proud of this stretch (as Mayakovsky had once been),

straddling the boroughs on its wires, 

with nothing that’s non-manufactured in sight. 

This piece of steel is my daily bread.

Isn’t that what you’ d have me believe, Richard?

And, admittedly, I’m love with your sheering edges and your massive 




weights,

your strapping, proud volumes.

And their surface -oh the surface!- abrasive, primitive, and coarse.

So, would you have me scrape my smooth face against it?

Would devotion require blood, like with you-know-whom?

How appropriate that your slabs bleed too, that they get scuffed

and etched upon, graffiti-ed, spat, and pissed upon.

Denounced in demeaning disgrace.

For you should know, Richard,

that genius is never quiet.

And that the Brooklyn Bridge may be long,

but not quite long enough

to sustain us into eternity.

Escape

What a perfect evening for torture!

Step
The night over Avenue A smells of heat
Pause
Loudspeaking pavements throb with music,
my pores rythmically open to its
wetness,
whetting my appetite.
Smile
Addictions are hard to forgo.

New step
I try to recall
step
what it feels like to be in your presence:
Pause.
The paralysing entirety of you.

New step
Your face resonates
step
the promise that
step
with you
I will be finally undone.
Stop.

That, henceforth
Look up. Stars!
my hand in writing
and my brush in painting
will be guided.
New step
That you will awake within me
a
step
a
step
an eternal, self-transcending, universal (un)consciousness;
Pause.
The seat of godliness.

Hot hot hot hot heat.

You're an illusion.

Quickening steps
1st St
Faster
2nd. 3rd.
Faster
Faster
Break into run
10th St

I try to scrap you clean off my mind
but like a bloodied bandage you cling to my wound
sinking your teeth in it
Run for your life
11th 12th streets
devouring newly formed tissues
Run
13th
making it bleed anew whenever I try to rip you right off it.
14th.
Exhale. Catch breath. Turn left.

What is the price of my release?

Towards the crowds. Towards Union Sq. Towards oblivion.

Take this land, this island of Manhattan.
step, step, step,
run
It's yours by right, by wrong, by virtue of existence.
inhale, exhale, sweat
run
Take me. Selfless yet victorious in abandon.
sprint
Humble, in your presence
final traffic light turning red,
cross streat
jump over barrier
lose myself into the crowd

You can't find me here.

By request

You asked-
for the softness of sadness
It's gray-
I said
Hey-
you said-
Cliché!

You asked-
for the crispness at monrings
It stings-
I complained
So what?-
you replied
Touché.

You asked-
the unbalancing element
to balance the risk
of being apart from each other
Voilà-
I said
and I offered you this
in place of my kissing you, lover

Spotted Pig

A warm back
through window of
Spotted Pig Resto
on
Greenwich St

Golden afternoon
spiced olives
and
trout -smoked-
cold cold white wine
wooden stools with
soft worn cushions

Celebrating possibilities

The man's hand
sensually on her knees
her legs
the small of her back
She smiles.
- lovers-
Her perfectly manicured toenails
- so NYC

Time passes fully.
It blossoms
into the red brick brownstones

Ah. Creme Catalane
and espresso. Black.
Strong.
Et voila.
He kisses her fully, deeply.
She leans against his outstretched palm
extending
underneath the earlobe
to the back of her head.

Time blossoms fully.

Into my faded charcoaled jeans
I step out
take to the afternoon streets
smooth of wine
full of options
ripe in my knowledge of
attending possibilities.

Time broadens and tilts deliciously sideways.

Take Five

Take one. Athens.
Jazz on the iPod. Slow morning.
Slow, sunny, sweet, comfortable morning
that fits my skin like a warm, well-worn, woolly sweater.
Cold morning that wakes up my mind and my hands,
feeling dry and crackish
yet oddly fulfilled.
Piercing cold breeze on my nose
and earlobes, cold, cold rush of winter
surrounding my new beginnings.

I have woken up to a new day.

Take two. Still Athens.
You at work. Swing rhythm matching your pace throughout the day.
Cut to big screen images of digital boards
flashing ever changing prices
going up
down
down
up up up up
crashing down
it's falling
woo-hoo
roller coaster ride
get going
let's lock
-ooof.

Change of rhythm.
Jazz intermezzo
as the clarinet solos its way, strolling along.

Time
extends.

Light percussion
signals that the heat is on
in the background
waiting to be unleashed by the market forces.
Slowly building up.

Ta-da-ta-da
ta-ta
ta-da
ta.

And here we go.
We're off again.

You sway through all this in utter mastery
of your body's movements,
dance of life, celebration of vivacity in pure calmness,
the expectation of the future
waiting to burst forth like a pregnant fruit.
Dance!

Take three. NYC, centre of the universe.
Masses of little ants rush their way in the financial district
and as they move northwards they
slow
down,
they shed their skin,
away fly ties and jackets,
business cases get lost
among the
tippity
tippity
tap
of feet-

Wham!
Enter through the invisible gates of 42nd
and here we go

slow rush slow rush slow

it's a beautiful morning in fall after all
and New York smells like newly sharpened pencils.


Take four. Lunch on the Thames.
Coffee brewing smell enters my nostrils
as the train pulls in Waterloo station.
People get off
get on
carrying lives, memories, hopes
carrying the universe on this day.
A
static
array
of images
like on a roll of film.
People get off get on
day in day out.
Static,
like paintings.

And suddenly you project it on the screen and it starts playing and-
-miracle of miracles!-
change, movement, time!
The world is no longer motionless and yet it always is!

Ah, the illusions that our brains can digest.

Zoom into my own, small, personal movie.
Cut, frame-

boarding on train, looking back, nostrils detecting the smells of London
Beloved smells, filled with past promise, memories of home.
Warm afternoons under blankets
gazing lazily outside the window
tall trees flashing green in the weak sunshine.
The idea of happiness mingled with the
pitty pat of
kitty feet on
wooden floors
and the sounds of my lover busying about in the kitchen.
Bach's Brandenburg concertos s t r e a m lightly
among the newly washed white sheets.

Cut, back to action-

I step on the Eurostar to Paris,
fulfilled in my knowledge of the past and eager to meet my future.

Take five. Paris.
Late afternoon.
It's already dark and the cabs are
whooshing
down cobble stoned streets
outside Gare du Nord.
I don't smoke, yet I light a cigarette
- no philosopher should be allowed
to enter Paris without a pack of cigarettes
to remind her that she is of mortal
yet magnificent coil-
L'argot fills my ears
as I close my eyes
and am surrounded
by a sea of
Algerian Jamaican Polish Chinese
vernacular.
Sweet, sweet soft
dark chocolate neo-french
of les mahgrebins.
Acid smells
mingled with the sound of cars splashing by.
It's cold and smelly but hey,
c'est Paris.

Tic toc tic toc tic toc

seconds and minutes go by

Screeching tyres in front of me
A taxi door opens and I am summoned in:
Μπες μέσα.
I enter the leather-clad interior smelling of weed
and my pores are attacked by the warmth
and the dark fabrics
and the feel of cracked leather under my palms.

I turn and am met by two vibrant, dark peacock green eyes,
the colour of the abyss.
And then you whisper:
welcome to my world

and I am overcome
by a hot, tender, balming sensation.

Black out.
I am home.
Cut to Dave Brubeck, "take five".