Category: Uncategorized

I interviewed Alexis
Who told me about riots
– against the privatised University

At Aristotle Thessaloniki
Anarchists stage an occupation
– no to commercial education

Students repainted Guernica
To avoid the same fate
– it hangs in the Rectorate

AntiCapitalists gather in the Steki
Iced coffee for the Revolution
– caffeine helps with enlightenment

In the city it hits 38 degrees
The Gaza demo does Aristotelous
– black and red flags rise

Petros sees an uncertain future
Tales of hurt and of exploitation
– oppression without redemption

Together we read Kropotkin
Later Marx and Bakunin
– literature is a burning sun

Aliki thinks I’m mad
To think this at Halkidiki
– student revolt will win out

An estranged hunger coupled those two
Sweat beat down their backs, tastes like temptation
And it is brisk
Estranged hunger masked by the need for warmth
ignite the firewood left in the fireplace
Show me
No one has lit this house
The fire could last for days; still, the hunger left unsatisfied
Even in heat, those two are cold
Ravenous
–
Thumping music died to a whisper
These are the seductive voices of the night
Stalked and snaked the willing fool
Caught by the lightning that illuminates the seas
It would be doing them an injustice to presume they wanted to seduce

You the white clouds that are like swan feathers, I adore you. Please grant me a
power to write poems that seem sweet to the mind’s eye. May with your help,
the eyes and ears will see and hear the words just as white, true and pure as you.
1
I don’t feel good
But the sky does
I look at her
The sugary clouds up above my head brighten me up
2
I want to be sad
I want to grumble
I want to struggle with my body and mind
But those fluffy white clouds stop me from doing so
3
And remember the time
You were thinking that the world is near to end
But you came to the beach the right time
And you saw the blurred line between the sea and the sky
And this is the art of the clouds and water
4
You are gone and me
Powerless of getting you back
Everything I wanted to say to you and you didn’t listen
I told to the clouds above
5
I was about to
Get on that airplane
And never return to my hometown
But my effort was to no avail
I returned
Still I am the winner
I saw beautiful clouds in the sky
6
We can be upset
We can deny the truth
We can confirm the blackness of the hearts
But we cannot deny the good hearted clouds
And the honesty in their whiteness
7
Don’t near him
Don’t near yourself too
Be like a cloud
Above him
Above you
8
Clouds, they don’t smell
They are shapeless
When they start to rain
The water is tasteless
Yet I see the beauty of their shapes
And I feel their vanilla scent
And I taste the sweet water of rain
9
I’m talking to you, the white cloud
Arrogant
High above
Thanks for watching me
And letting me share my dreams with you
10
Monochrome is good
But be aware of the day
That the clean blue sky
Invites the shiny white clouds to her feast
11
You, the cloud
You, the separate identity
You, the mysterious and charming entity
You have saved me from taking my life again
12
Adore the cloud
Be it white or black
Be it dry or wet
If you were lonely and cheerless
If your dreams didn’t come true
If there were words you couldn’t utter loudly
Adore the cloud
13
I’m so ingrained in my solitude
That seeing a powdery single cloud makes my day
As good as it gets
14
My body laid on bed
Head and neck hanging
Gazing at the plastered ceiling
But the window is open
From the corner of the window
I see a cloud with the shape of a heart
I will definitely fall in love
15
I want to write a poem
Not for you
But for that lovely little cloud
which is way more generous than you
16
The sky is gloomy
The clouds have formed an association up there
Look how they are summoned
To single handedly rub the loneliness, your handmade, off my heart
17
Look at these humble hollow but full puffy shapes
Have sit to praise me
becoming a poet
18
People down here
Are small and busy
Oblivious to the sky above
that in a flawless show
has lined up his white soldiers
19
Gray clouds at sunset
They are bearing with me
They are the confidants of my secrets
20
War happens
Rape happens
People hosting each other with scoff
Grudge
Enmity
But those meek clouds above
Unassuming
21
I love the stars
When I was a child, I chose a shiny juicy star
And now I am ready
To exchange it with a delicate white cloud
22
They are trying to take everything from you
they don’t know
What you sincerely put in the corner of your heart
And no one can take it away
is a cloud that has long been your secret sharer
23
I know it’s evil but
People’s disregard for the clouds above
makes my day
I feel that I am the winner of every competition
All the clouds are mine
24
I know up there
A royal white castle made of could
Is awaiting me
25
Forget your life
Drink your coffee
And gaze at those creamy layers of cloud above
26
Cloud
The only point
That links up me with the planet earth
27
Has it ever happened to you
That you give up on everything and everyone
But a cloud
That you are supposed to see it dancing in the dawn?
28
Each time you don’t talk to me
I find a new cloud friend in the sky
a kind of revenge in its own way
29
Clouds made me a poet
And what’s better
Than a verve being bubbled within by such a white fragrant space?
30
I believe the clouds are those sheer lives
Whom we lost
May the kingdom of those pure spiritual masses
On top of our existence be permanent

21st-century medicine, I plug in.
A simple thing that always wins.
Addicted to the flavorful taste
of euphoric bliss when my post is liked.

The craving for opinions I’d die to listen to.
Of course, I would. Why wouldn’t I?
You’re prettier; the comments tell you why.
But why do you always tell me
what is wrong with my body?
As if the voices in my head
become amplified when I look at you.

Your demeaning tone and your pungent odor
of judgment swarming my world
and becoming my reality.
I am addicted to these false realities.

I feel my curves as if I were a winding road
wishing they were a straight highway.
Show me a stop sign on my road to self-acceptance.
Take me to a place where I can pump love into myself.
Premium gasoline for this beat-down vehicle.
Turn me into Grease Lightning.
Tell me I am beautiful and make it so.
But you.
You make me feel worthless and hideous
inside and out.
I scroll through the images of the most beautiful girls
wishing I was a carbon copy of them.
A like, a comment, a superficial validity tool
I use to make me feel cool.

Is it too big?
I did nothing to it, I swear.
The boys try to see who I am
but fall short of discovering my complexity
by stopping to notice my thighs.
Look into my eyes instead of staring at my ass, please.
I am not an object of your fascination
to fixate on and mess within your imagination.

My body is mine and mine alone.

Unless you are the accounts.
Please like my photoshopped body in the post,
comment, tell me I am the most beautiful.
Tell me how to fix my face,
these things I can’t erase.
I was born this way,
and that is not ok.
Too fat, too skinny,
too short, and not pretty.
21st-century medicine,
I stay plugged in.

Pearl Osten worked until after midnight, Oct. 2, 1927, in an Eighth street tea room, where she eked out a wage which helped to pay for her schooling. She took a street car to the home of relatives with whom she was staying … There the trail ends.
– Minneapolis Star, May 24, 1930

Pearl’s rarity in such a lifetime
on that new broke land I don’t anymore recall there may
have been tree line or hedgerow a grove named & a bird’s sternum
a stem & a leaf stalk sparkling with the star-spattered hairs of a scarce
clustered poppy in blood carmine redness though perhaps
not native rather planted or escaped from some settler’s garden/ a natural
migrant or not – I could have made a simple move from cloistered pearl –
my bodice of flowers hand-tatted lace mizzling
my throat & with my stranger’s accent (I was a child grown up with folk
from another place) I could have called out my crisis but for the background
the measure that caught me descendant seeking
coursing/ stalking as the wail of a red-shouldered hawk

//

it’s late he said I’ll see you to your door & we headed
out from my shift a way-past-midnight-moon spangling as speechless
witness/ mimetic (almost) of morning coming & our shadows coursed
rolling as changelings mine floated – glittering in my gypsy
server’s costume stepping up to the streetcar platform – & my gallant
my admirer my knight touched my arm then held –

//

& though Hildegard’s theory of viriditas (associating greenness with fecundity
& the womb of the female body) warns us of the counterbalance of verdancy
with the violence of male sexuality quickening all things to life
still daughters will leave home for more & music
& mothers will weep for losing

//

& I looked up & saw the night sky sequined & looking down
I saw faults & natural basins filled with rainfall & streams flowing clear
as waters of Olaf Lake lapping at my ankles & then I swam/ swimming
for home for the farm & it’s not news that human intention
is changeable I know that now/ the way it works/ hunter & prey

//

it’s two hundred miles as the crow flies from Minneapolis to Norwegian Grove
& in such a lifetime brief/ what but twenty years & just watch
the animals how elegantly they walk as though they own this world &
I wish for the melodies I only studied but never made (the metronome of a mantle
clock our homestead’s only timepiece – there are seven here/ collected / lined up
above your fireplace) & I can still smell rosemary in the garden or maybe
it’s Mama’s dill & every day in June I brush past velvety purple plumes
of prairie turnips in our fields & I hope they still grow & flourish
where once they thrived in Minnesota in my time

I arrived at a destination that was far away from home.
It was more like isolation. I felt alone!
Drowning, watching water surround me on every side,
called my parents every day and often cried.
I searched for ways to escape this place,
because with each passing day, a little more of my joy died,
but I kept praying for the loneliness to subside.

This place had me rooted in an abyss of despair.
I started to think that no one cared.
I found myself chained in depression,
searching for signs of regression,
while battling crippling questions,
navigating the lows that lead to suicidal ideations,
wishing that my heart and mind would enter mediation,
and that all these feelings were just a part of my imagination.

How could I let myself get to such a place where I was left feeling alone this way?
I thought I was stronger! I can’t stay here any longer.
I have to make a change!
It’s time for me to rearrange my thoughts, for not from trying,
I found myself pondering. Is this all that life has left?
Should I stay or should I go?
At this very moment, the answer would deliver my parents a devastating blow.

Mystic Morton was a wizard
Spells and magic galore
I have found I disagree;
Yet one has bound to adore

He knew many chants and rituals
But this he liked most:
His bobcat Michelangelo
would turn into golden brown toast!

He’d done it without mistake
Michelangelo back!
This time it went different,
Michelangelo, still, dead slack

Mystic Morton cried with anguish
Head in his hands he sobbed
How could this happen? No answer!
He felt wrongly robbed.

Was this mishap his fault? And how?
“Steal a peek at the spell,
Did I speak it incorrectly?”
Oh dear, this wasn’t going well.

“Aha, I got it now!” he said,
thrice reading his chant.
“Wow, instead of ‘toast’ I said ‘ghost’!”
An issue, very scant.

With a lick of his lips, he boomed,
“Transformatio Michelangelo!”
No longer in stasis,
the bobcat exclaimed “hello”!

“Stuttering stardust! He can talk!”
Mystic Morton uttered.
“I won’t turn you toast again!”
“You better,” the cat spluttered.

(You’ll be gone1),
but all of my memories from your2 time
1 You’ll be gone.
2 adjective qualifying time. A time that would be mine but is instead permeated by you.

In limitless time
Wander endless days and nights
I am a drifter
–
In a dark era
All is lost and forgotten
Hope will be your light
–
King of no kingdom
A hero unknown to all
His eyes show the truth
–
The wind rises up
Trees dance and sway in the breeze
This land is alive
–
She waits by the lake
A promise I made to her
We will meet again
–
A chill in the air
Leaves change color as they die
Fall has come again
–
The flame burns brightly
Creation through destruction
Iron becomes steel
–
You cannot go back
Unable to move forward
Trapped by the present
–
Star falls from the sky
Amazing for the moment
Never seen again
–
Cherry blossoms fall
Float along the gentle stream
Away to new lands
–
Small seed in the ground
Wandering in the darkness
Climbs toward the light
–
Count the syllables
Trim away unneeded words
To write a haiku

It begins with an itch
just above the nape.
The seeds grow there.
White bud, tail, and bowels
twist in a full bed of hair.
The creature is microscopic,
mistaken as dust,
or the dandruff of hair,
unwashed.

Fingernails rake the bed
until the scalp aches,
scraped in spots to the skull.
Scabs pull away
with the brushing of hair,
until sore is the miserable halo,
you wear. Knowing,
you wrinkle your brow.
Sweep the mask
to the hair that drapes the brow—
the curtain of underhair—
to see the growth,
the seed planted.
He clings,
woven into the tresses like rope,
climbing leg-over-leg to nest
in the base of warmth, the neck.

If you had no choice
would you shave him down?
Instead, you buy like a force, some RID,
to wring him down wet with a tiny comb.

You strip sheets from beds,
hose the bathroom,
sterilize laundry, vacuum,
shake out the carpets,
throw pillows from house to lawn.
Your cursings baptize the louse.
He lies in the lather-white foam,
washed in the bathtub current,
basted in the acidy batter.

But is he ever gone?
For days to come,
won’t you imagine him
floating in the cream,
wriggling for his life
in your French-vanilla latte,
struggling in the pools?
And itching occurs
far after the latter,
for weeks,
even after the death
of the bastards.