Amazon Hunter

He put his foul mouth to one end of a hollow cane
And puffed a gust of wind from his lungs …
Statistically infallible marksmanship
And a poison-tipped dart conspired to interrupt
The play of a little monkey
On the lacy shores of the forest in the sky
And sent it tumbling down,
To lower and lower branch
Until,
Lifeless,
It hit the hard surface
Of all that hungers and thirsts and cries.

But a sin was not committed, in spite of his foul mouth.
A day’s honest work was done.
He scratched his bare behind, as he did after every kill,
And slinged the monkey over his shoulders.
Little hairy arms dangle, keeping time
To the hunter’s pace quickened by heartbreaking
Cries unseen but all too familiar.
What delicate fingers!
Sweet little eyes! Shut.
It fell asleep in the heaven’s mortal embrace.
He is going to put the baby to bed.
Yes, he is.

It's a string entangled tale

It’s a string entangled tale not this or that ear-
catching smolt of myth,
e.g. the part man part bull issue of queen Pasiphae
pinched from the eukaryotic soma of Minoan Crete,
or the daughter cells of myth,
e.g. Theseus-Ariadne, Daedalus-Labirynth, Ikarus-flight …
et cetera, et cetera,
but the genus of mute impulse for myth,
this fresh-water, unifying by division
unseen process
which rolls in with the replication of man’s ghost signature
and by polarization and attraction split-spurns the alevin man
to upstream bipolar fish-tail kinesis –
a mitotic adventure entailing ultimate division
and a roiling desire to return to Mother.

The Venetian fountain Bembo

The little green town-spot known by the old as Coube,
on the north side of the Cornaro Square,
marks the back end of the Heraklion market
and is by silent consensus a station for relaxation
(also for comfort),
especially after a good night’s sleep
on the complacent cot of myth.

It is dotted with buttocks inviting brown wicker chairs
and wrought iron, round-top tables – the set up
for brewing a slothful frame of mind
and all-purpose Greek, not Turkish, coffee.
Actually, it is an open air coffee shop
in the shelter of speechless trees
fanning over grey heads and conversation.

The handsome currency of morning shade,
courtesy of a modern building across,
wags invitingly to pensioners and pigeons
to peck at peanuts pending from the State
and current off the floor.

There stands the Venetian fountain Bembo,
with its mutilated marble statue in recess.
The head is missing – lost in the quick sand
of partisan politics.
The right hand is gone – (rumors of a ghost hand
torching Peloponnese are ablaze.)
Only the sarcophagus for basin remains – gapping
for water … and flesh.

Oh, love me not

Oh, love me not to the brim of your heart.
What fool can deny love's semblance to art?
Love me as a connoisseur sips fine wine
Lest your sweet blue eyes turn two lakes of brine.

Birds have no pockets

Birds have no pockets, or hands.
Flight measures light, as gravity weight.
The fill of the oil lamps in wait for
The bridegroom is for the ground bound,
Dust-shrouded spirits of prudence.

It's the political pit-bull fights

It's the political pit-bull fights
That burn the forests of my heart:
In chambers Parnitha and Corinth,
The ascending Pelion
And the descending Nafplion,
All up in Green and Blue flames.

Pitiful politicians through windows
Of self-ridicule gabble in flaming tongues
Over each other’s unlabored works and days –
Monuments of incompetence and corruption.

It is the kiss of the Ephialtes in modern Greece
That razes to the ground
And raises to the cross
This country of the burning bush of myth.

Hail to thee, Hellenic Republic, hail!

Delicious Strawberries

“Delicious strawberries!” the peddler cried
I smiled, knowing he lied:
Strawberries of this large a size
are always the hormones’ pride,
I thought and pressed on my way, when
a voice in my head whispered thus again:

“Representations in sound collude with sight,
no less with smell or touch or taste
t’assail the mind and smite one’s hopes with blight
in thoughtless actions due to haste, resulting to waste.”

Interview

Interviewed by the Iranian journalist and poet Mrs. Farideh Hassanzadeh-Mostafavi. Thank you dear Farideh, for introducing me to the Iranian public.

Aggression

Don’t interpret; show the human trek!
The implicit aggression and threat in food consumption.
A bite on a piece of bread, or a bite on the neck:
I live, you die – satiation versus starvation.

This late afternoon in early June

This late afternoon in early June,
on the Craterus beach
(hail river Byzantine General
robbed of water and victory)
my field of vision, a cerebral canvas,
is aching to split horizontally in half.

The top is in flat, smooth strokes of baby blue:
sky and sea in a seamless pairing,
almost imperceptible if it were not for
the petrified dragon – the isle of Dia –
divulging to reason the Line.

The frequent whirs and drones align with the shore
to alight on the hard shoulder of the General
to my left and hatch the seasonal suitors
of sun, sand and sea.

The bottom half is livelier,
a honeycomb of gritty gold and grey
worked with the palette knife
of the setting sun on sand.

The near crackling of dice in the tinder-less
abdomen of a backgammon echoes in my brain
and I cannot catch the silence of the sailing wind.

Heeling ... the soul

A wry smile studded with tiny
wooden pegs.
(How do they taste? I wonder!)
He pinched one peg out,
fixed it on the heel
of a shoe
and hit it with his hammer.
Thud! Thud!
One in.
Count: two, three, four, five.

The shoe is ready, heeled.

Cobbler, can you do the same with my soul?
Can you heal my soul?

Of course, I can, the cobbler said.
He swooped me up in his brawny arms,
stretched me on a cross and ...
Count: one, two, three, four.
Four nails.
Vinegar taste.
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Published by Taj Mahal Review, Dec. 2007