erotic evangelism

by Themis Tsironis, 1985

waiting for the barbarians

-Konstantine P. Kavafy

What are we waiting for, gathered in the Forum?
This is the day the barbarians come.

Why is the Senate so idle, the Senators all
in their places but not making law?
Because this is the day the barbarians come.

Why should the Senators bother with laws?
When the barbarians come, they'll make them.

Why has our emperor risen so early,
to state

and the Emperor's waiting to welcome
their chieftain. Indeed, he's made ready
a parchment to give him, on which
are inscribed lots of titles and names.

Why have our consuls and praetors appeared,
dressed up today in the crimson, the embroidered togas;
why are their armlets encrusted with amethysts,
rings bright with glistening emeralds?
And why are they bearing their batons of office,
exquisitely sculpted in silver and gold?

Because this is the day the barbarians come,
and things like that dazzle barbarians.

Why don't the eminent orators turn up as usual,
making their speeches and speaking their parts

Because this is the day the barbarians come,
and they're bored by such eloquence and public speaking.

Why this uneasiness suddenly, why this
Why are the squares and the avenues rapidly emptying,
everyone turning so pensively homeward?

Because night has fallen without the barbarians coming.
that there are no barbarians left any more.

And without the barbarians now, what's to come of us?
They were a sort of solution, those people.
(1904)

rattled little clam-lullabye baxter

old port

I hope that the changes that have come to the new port take their time turning the corner to the old port. Each year there are fewer fishing boats and more and more large pleasure craft. It is sad.
Arete's son, Giorgo, has been having increasing difficulties supporting himself as a fisherman. The fish are getting smaller and smaller, some species are disappearing altogether.
Until just a few years ago, there were always fresh local octopus hanging out to dry in front of every taverna. Now most of the octopus served on the island, and throughout much of Greece, comes from Asia. And it is just heartbreaking to see a single tentacle hanging out there. Old habits are difficult to break, but unless fishing practices allow for regeneration of stocks, and until there is a concerted joint effort between locals, tourists and the transportation companies to curtail pollution and the dumping of refuse, there is not much hope for a locally sustainable future for any of these islands.

tonight the moon

-Kostas Karyotakis

Tonight the moon will fall upon
the strand, a heavy pearl.
And over me will play the mad
mad moonlight.

The ruby wave will shatter
at my feet, and scatter all the stars.
From my palms two doves
will have been born;

they'll rise -- two silver birds --,
be filled -- two cups -- with moonlight,
sprinkle moonlight on my shoulders,
on my hair.

The sea is molten gold.
I'll launch my dream to sail
upon a ca&idieresis;que. I'll tread a diamond
into gravel, glistening.

The encircling light will seem to pierce
my heart, a heavy pearl.
And I shall laugh. And then I'll weep... And there,
there's the moonlight!

friends

This is what I love. At the beach at Ftelia, Taki happy in conversation with his good friend Kosta. Kosta comes to swim each day, late in the morning or early afternoon before he starts work driving tourists around the island in his taxi cab. I have my finger crossed that we will see him again soon.

California - Joni Mitchell

the lily of the sea

by Themis Tsironis, 1998

phaestos disc

The Phaestos Disc has undeciphered symbols and remains a mystery.

who is that man?

...and what is he doing?

in the sea caves

- Giorgos Seferis

In the sea caves
there's a thirst there's a love
there's an ecstasy
all hard like shells
you can hold them in your palm.

In the sea caves
for whole days I gazed into your eyes
and I didn't know you nor did you know me.

February 15

Madness in the mountain,
Sweet communitas
Coconut reception
hothouse for the Goss.
Kerperamun, Kerperamun all-a-same-a-wine
Kavakeva kavakeva kavakeva divine.

Pumpkins up the flagpole,
Belly don’t know
Dark of the night
Come a sweet cargo
Alligator gossip
Ghost be white
Destroyer angel
Labored for a flight

River washing snakeskin
sing-for-go-round mate
Bird come, now come, now we wait
Kerperamun, Kerperamun all-a-same-a-wine
Kavakeva kavakeva kavakeva divine.

©Skorda 2008

John Frum Cincinnati

I draw a line in the dirt
bare earth where once there were trees
Shuffleboard straight, two lines now
Many hands to make them strong,
many hearts will make them bright.
A beacon, set for those above
The powers holding what we love..
They look, but see not sisters and brothers,
just nameless ones and faceless Others.
The strong control what we hold dear,
we send our light and draw it near.
No millenarian frenzy.
No Ghost Dance
We live the truth
The oldest story
there must be death before rebirth
Winter will yield to spring
Straight lines can, and do, curve into circles
A bag of faces tumbles from the sky
We rejoice
John From
John Frum
John From
Cincinnati

Marina on the Rocks

- Odysseus Elytis

You have a taste of tempest on your lips—But where did you wander
All day long in the hard reverie of stone and sea?
An eagle-bearing wind stripped the hills
Stripped your longing to the bone
And the pupils of your eyes received the message of chimera
Spotting memory with foam!
Where is the familiar slope of short September
On the red earth where you played, looking down
At the broad rows of the other girls
The corners where your friends left armfuls of rosemary.

But where did you wander
All night long in the hard reverie of stone and sea?
I told you to count in the naked water its luminous days
On your back to rejoice in the dawn of things
Or again to wander on yellow plains
With a clover of light on you breast, iambic heroine.

You have a taste of tempest on your lips
And a dress red as blood
Deep in the gold of summer
And the perfume of hyacinths—But where did you wander
Descending toward the shores, the pebbled bays?

There was cold salty seaweed there
But deeper a human feeling that bled
And you opened your arms in astonishment naming it
Climbing lightly to the clearness of the depths
Where your own starfish shone.

Listen. Speech is the prudence of the aged
And time is a passionate sculptor of men
And the sun stands over it, a beast of hope
And you, closer to it, embrace a love
With a bitter taste of tempest on your lips.

It is not for you, blue to the bone, to think of another summer,
For the rivers to change their bed
And take you back to their mother
For you to kiss other cherry trees
Or ride on the northwest wind.

Propped on the rocks, without yesterday or tomorrow,
Facing the dangers of the rocks with a hurricane hairstyle
You will say farewell to the riddle that is yours.

kalimera ellada: goin' through

Kind and merciful Vishnu, preserver of life, is reborn whenever there is a crisis on Earth.

Mother Goddess

“The Pendant of Gold Bees (Chryssolakkos, 1700 -1550 BCE) seems to take on the shape of a woman with a rounded belly. The bail of the pendant even conveys the appearance of a head. The large eyes of the bees become the breasts of the woman and their connected tails form her womb, containing a disc-like object;perhaps the seed of life.

“In many ancient texts the bee represents the Mother Goddess. Goddesses associated with fertility and nature are often associated with the honey bee.”

It has been said that the Goddess was depicted as “Queen Bee” by the Minoans and that bees were believed to have been closely tied to bull worship, once dedicated to the Goddess. Also of note are the bee-masked priestesses which appear on Minoan seals and the Goddess figure of Merope, meaning “honey-faced, found in Greek mythology. This evidence points towards the possibility that the female representation found in the pendant of gold bees is not merely decorative, but an intentional composition created to symbolize the Great Goddess.”

From “The Mother Goddess Symbolized in Minoan Art’, by Grian DeBandia

Winter Fruit

Persephone
A Poem
B.A. St. Andrews

I.

They call me Daughter of Darkness,
Pomegranate Girl, call me
wanton, say I yielded foolishly
to some wild force surging through
curled fronds and came to harm
because I could resist no more
than Sibyls roused to madness
by Apollo's kiss. But there is
more to bitter sacrifice than this.

II.

Everywhere that day were poppies:
silver light and pollen like gold boats
bobbing in lakes of air. The fragrance
of my carefree life rose higher
than incense on Greek altars.
Yet for me the morning seemed sadder
than all supplication, more desperate
than twilight birds calling "Lost, lost,"
more choked with yearning than Demeter's
devoted throngs murmuring for grain
or rain or respite from imagined wrongs.

I was led from childhood friends--
Sisters of Cyclamen, Morning's Maids,
Flower Weavers whose laughter
was gold coins around my feet. I
only wandered off because I heard
a larkspur speak my name. Tipping
my ear to its emerald lip for the secret
I slipped like dew down its stem.

III.

Crying. Entangled. Caught in a web
of roots I knew the truth of all
vanishing things. I cried out for
Demeter until the mud dividing her
domain from all that is now mine
smeared my mouth and sealed my eyes.

Thrown under a wheel of darkness,
I was ground down like amber
wheat under remorseless stone.
Falling inside such darkness: I,
Maid of All Meadows, Singer
of Streams and Skies. In this
infinity of falling I found this
lost world, this twilight world:

I, Cherished of Sunlight, Sister
of Dawn, Child of May, Heir to
All Harvests. I was broken
stone thrown in the Well
of Nothingness. But there is more
to bitter sacrifice than this.

IV.

I could hear, far as skies above me,
Demeter's terror. She clawed canyons,
tore mountains like green silk, lifted
forests full of sleeping creatures
to find me. I stumbled on below
through dank infinity. Nearly blind
I groped through valleys of blue
smoke, crossed bridges of bone
and blasted root thrown over
vaporous chasms, took into my
clotted lungs the cloying
incense of the moldering dead.

Suddenly He spoke my name or
another name that is now mine.
His voice was shy as April
hyacinths, his voice was sorrow
beyond the solace of all seasons.
His voice took shape swaying
like a silver rope trailing
a skiff through water. His eyes
were hyacinths, purple with
loss, vineyards of longing,
the thirst of desert roots.

His arms were silver sickles
harvesting gold grain around
my heart. I held my palms
as shields and warning hard
against my chest and still
his eyes pressed unrelenting
inside my emerald glade.
Finally he quieted and lay
like a faun on nests of pine.

Thus, like a small terrified beast,
Hades became mine. His skin
was soft and crisp as morning
crocus. His cold bolted through me
like blue lightning could once do.
My touch shifted like light across
his mottled skin. Under my hands
he was like sleepy silver snakes
of Mother's palace that twined
themselves to bracelets on my
arm to waken from some dream
or fright and bite the tender limbs
they dreamt upon. Meaning no harm.

V.

Queen of Afterlife, caught between
such sweetness and such strife, I
startled into this, my second life.
Above us all the while was Demeter
freezing sap and womb and season.
When her ceaseless ragings threatened
even Phoebus, Zeus called both worlds
to reason. Hades must atone;
Demeter could not remain alone.

Again, for sacrifice, the Gods chose
me, Queen of Seeds, Loom of Shadows.
So I came to wander in both worlds,
one my mother's, one my lover's:
neither purely mine. Before slipping
again through that slender larkspur's
stem I made the Promise
of the Pomegranates. I chose
to take that blood seed from His
trembling lips. It folded like a secret
child beneath the curled rose
of my tongue. The King of Death
and I were pledged forever One.

To weeping choirs of birds I
kissed those violet eyes and vowed
return. Then, sure of my purposes
as a seed (sure of the double life
known by the secret root that feeds
the sun-gorged fruit) I took up
the task of separation, half
from sunshine, half from night
and climbed again the thin
green path to Earth and light.

VI.

Much altered was the place
of sunstorms as I hurried to my
childhood home. The landscape
was abloom with only stones;
I seemed to walk frost-dazed
roads alone. Then as through
a distant crystal cloud I saw
Her. Mother, wearing a diadem
of snow, was crooning a dirge
from the dawn of days. Glazed
pines stretched blue fingers
toward a frozen sun. At once
pure love for the Mother of
All Things blazed up in me.

As suddenly I felt heat flare
at my back; my every step
sprung flowers: bloodroot, snow
drop, gentian, sage. I heard
a wood thrush sing. When I
moved inside the circle of my
Mother's arms the whole
exultant Earth cried awakenings.
Summer days are a hummingbird's
kiss; summer days roll swift
as rivers. But there is more to
bitter sacrifice than this.

VII.

Thus was my Destiny decided:
Dutiful to green mother and to
tenebrous lover I must search
out those I love and leave them.
Arriving only and always to depart
my full heart knows its shatterings
and has reasons to split open
tender as red maple leaves.

I am uncomplaining seed
and self-containing sorrow:
Eternal Wife, Eternal Daughter
I am both Life and Afterlife.
Silent I am the music
of two worlds. Persephone,
Queen of Shadows. I,
Kore, the Pomegranate Girl.

Poseidon

dream of the fisherman's wife

-Katsushika Hokusai, 1820

what every lover learns

Water is heavy silver over stone.
Water is heavy silver over stone's
Refusal. It does not fall. It fills. It flows
Every crevice, every fault of the stone,
Every hollow. River does not run.
River presses its heavy silver self
Down into stone and stone refuses.
What runs,
Swirling and leaping into sun, is stone's
Refusal of the river, not the river.


-Archibald MacLeish
What Any Lover Learns
Collected Poems 1917 - 1952

meteora

Ah Meteora! The sandstone pillars of Meteora, meaning “hovering in the air”, rise majestically above the plains of Thessaly, in north central Greece. Believed to have been formed by wind, sand and water during the tritogenic period of approximately 60 million years ago. So awe inspiring, it is astounding that this amazing natural wonder is not significant in the ancient Greek texts. In about the 12th C. Byzantine monks became retreating to the Meteora, forming a monastic state centered upon the Theotokos, or Mother of God. Numerous monasteries were erected upon thenearly inaccessible pinnacles of the Meteora. Six monasteries remain active. Unlike the monasteries at holy Mt. Athos, the monasteries at Meteora welome female visitors.

Well worth a visit to slow down, visit the monasteries. Don't stay in downtown Kalambaka. Go to the edge of the rocks, in the residential area where the Koka Roka Guesthouse/ Taverna is. The first time we visited Taki and I stayed at the Koka Roka, and we had no complaints, but it is quite basic. Next door is Also's house, the rooms are much nicer and the price is comparable. A shared kitchenmakes it easy to have breakfast and afternoon snacks, and large balconies gove an incredible view of the rocks. We have only eaten at Koka Roka's Tavern. It's cheap. it's good and it is right there so...Plus the people who run the Koka Roka are so hospitable. Arthur, who lived for many years in Australia, is there working with his mom. Every morning arthur stands in the doorway, looking at the rock....

destiny

The Messenger-Spirit
in human flesh
is assigned a dependable,
self-reliant, versatile,
thoroughly poet existence
upon its sojourn in life

It does not knock
or ring the bell
or telephone
When the Messenger-Spirit
comes to your door
though locked
It'll enter like an electric midwife
and deliver the message

There is no tell
throughout the ages
that a Messenger-Spirit
ever stumbled into darkness

-Gregory Corso

conversation

"When your language is lost you will no longer have the words to communicate with your Creator. You will lose your tongue with Him, and it is very important to keep that. When you speak with someone they speak back.You ask questions, they answer.Before long you get to know one another. It is that way with God. You talk to him and pretty soon He will talk back to you. In our language we learn the words to speak with Him. How will He speak back? How will we understand?"
R.K., native speaker of an endangered dialect of the Algonkian language, approximately 20-30 fluent speakers remaining
"Movers and Shakers...", S. Patterson

generosity

if you pass your night
and merge it with dawn
for the sake of heart
what do you think will happen

if the entire world
is covered with the blossoms
you have labored to plant
what do you think will happen

if the elixir of life
that has been hidden in the dark
fills the desert and towns
what do you think will happen

if because of
your generosity and love
a few humans find their lives
what do you think will happen

if you pour an entire jar
filled with joyous wine
on the head of those already drunk
what do you think will happen

go my friend
bestow your love
even on your enemies
if you touch their hearts
what do you think will happen

Rumi, “Fountain of Fire”
Translated by Nader Khalili

image from an antique window shutter