An Ordinary Day

It was an ordinary day.
What could I expect
On an ordinary day?
Enlightenment?
(Garlic is good for the heart.)

The sun was rising as I wetted my feet
In the liquid sheet of diamonds.
In the shallow waters of the shore
A little crab was exploring my toe.
I could crash the creature in its morning exploration
But decided I was magnanimous,even bored,
And let it go about its business.

At that moment I felt an icy hand take hold
Of my chest as if someone was intent on
Plucking my heart out.
Then it all went away.
As suddenly as it had started.

Tormented

In a city fair and beyond compare,
the women’s summer lays its scented flesh –
thighs, bellies and wobbly breasts – all bare,
exposed to testosterone suns in despair.

IN MEMORIAM: MANOS

In retrospect, you looked so funny
with those streaks of black and brown
shoe polish
on your poverty-burnished cheeks,
clenched teeth and mock anger.

“D’ya want me to shoot ya with yo gun
or cut ya with ma knife?” you growled unconvincingly.

It pained me to let you down.
You were my best friend, but I was thirsty.

“Let’s get a drink first,” I gasped.
“And a piss,” you grunted.

We ran to your place to quench our thirst
and empty our bladders.
Then you dragged me to your room,
opened a desk drawer and pulled out
a small diary.
You gave me a conspiratorial look and flipped
to the page where you had stashed
a ten drachma coin.
It flashed in my eyes like the silver moon
at which I howled in envy.

You had already started to save for your passage
out of misery, out of poverty – to America.
I suppose you gave the same look to your shipmate
before you jumped ship twenty years later.
I knew you always wanted to play with the real Cowboys
and Indians – I wasn’t much of a challenge for you.

Your promised land wasn’t easy on you at first.
It pitted you against dishwasher jobs –
mostly in burger joints.
The American dream was not for you:
too much fat and salt
gradually gnawed on a frail heart.
But you persevered, knowing that Texas wasn’t far
from California, that you could always wear
a Cowboy hat at work.

News of your death at the age of fifty five sailed in
with your son – he looks so much like you!
You were buried with a cowboy hat and boots.
I’ve always thought this part was for me, but
I cut off the Grim Reaper at the pass
and got away with a bypass.

Time rounds off murder

Time rounds off the edges of all murder;
it smooths the heinous details, bleaches blood
and leaves only shadows of numbers
shadows of fire, shadows of pain.
Time tames all
and lays all to rest –
innocent and victim
on the banks of history, like
smooth, rounded off pebbles.

Out of season

The fire tipped feet,
the fresh red on young girls' white skin,
and the seductively exposed flesh
have made me, much to my chagrin,
a teenager again, for good reason,
only now, alas, I’m out of season.

Andronice

Andronice, conqueror of all men.
You have outlived them all,
those you needed most –
husband and seven children, all boys.

Andronice, not a brute force of nature,
but simply nature: juicy
prickly pear.
Thus you weave your invisibility,
Your ever-presence in this world,
Your immortality – woman.

In the end what remains is your
ageless black-kerchiefed face
from behind rain-streaked window
panes,
sad face for ever a widow.

The hibiscus tree

Its size, small.
Its bole, straight and slender:
The hibiscus tree at the edge
Of my morning call for poetic inspiration
In the little square,
Tolls its blood-red bells
To stir the silence in my green vision.

BULL

Poseidon’s brilliant bull scored bull’s eye
with the Trojan cow queen Pasiphaë
who bore the beast, part man part bull,
as punishment condign upon the king
(king Minos the son of Zeus and princess Europa)
who sought Poseidon to fool
and Crete to rule.

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.