I
I question the flying fish, the ragged begging trees,
(the Argo, the Archangel,)
The rippling moon a pupil
In a clear pool,
(the Eugenia, the Nataly,)
And the lamps around it drawing
Streams of silver tears
Falling sideways.
(the Grigorousa and the Stefania.)
And the moon held a halo
(the Orion and the Alkioni,)
Made by the reflection of the sun's strong rays,
And the road echoed its mountains in a pothole.
(the Kloria and the Elessa,)
You wait where my eyes cannot look,
At the secret source of all, the crossroads
(the Erato, the Anthousa,)
Between stillborn fantasy and reality
(the Orfeus and the Aretousa.)
II
And when the offer is made Her eyes swim in confessional tears. "But you must know I cannot bear you children." So you will die, say her eyes. And I reply: "Our children will be the words you inspire within me. I will carry them for you, heavy in my swollen mind, And they will alight on earth from the highest heavens, Cradled by the wind of our shared soul."
III
Still obsessed by foreign geographies
The raiders come to spend themselves
In ostensibly new labours.
Pungent sage carried by the wind
And graves carved with borrowed names;
Murmuring towns where life is hidden
Behind storms of crickets and heat like stone
Bearing down as if to crush the seeker.
In the cold months they make
A claim staked on oxidised blood
Rusty smudges on a title deed
Which can never be inspected.
Unleveled hills
Mountains and distant banks
And constant winds blowing through two-house towns,
Rustling empty public squares.
The scent of distant death.
White paint asbestos and collapse.
Rotted crossbeams across thresholds.
The People's General Administrative Office
Staffed by laconic city men.
I see you distant in grey thickets,
Inhaling the sharp smell of wild herbs.
Beachside umbrellas,
The beautiful and the goods - import and export -
All those mountains
Only another fifteen minutes' drive
The sky lightens and winter dies
And now, obsessed by foreign geographies
These raiders come to spend themselves
In ostensibly new labours.
IV
In the myrtle they found you, after confession, judging,
Shaded by a bronze sundial's constant recalculation.
We left our planned life unlived, schematics untouched, put off
For a thousand old squabbles awaiting arbitration.
They brought their engineers, their businessmen and their lives,
And traded reputations; but there was no fine second,
No death-moment where we opened our hearts encased in stone.
We traded reputations, but our souls went un-reckoned.
All my life's love was wasted in a cyclone of angers,
Losing stillborn fantasy in the madness around you;
I was forced like a convert Kirishitan to tread on
That hollow sacred place where in the myrtle they found you.
verso folio 