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

Amandolin

kore

Rhode Island haiku

Ring around the moon
they say a storm is coming
Shop for bread and milk.

wolflight

The fall of darkness
when colors lose their hue,
all is soft gray.
A moment's stillness.
Focus fades,
the night feeders gather.

faces of the gauntlet: skiathos

what's true

I watched you run the gauntlet
with such grace, nothing touched you.
The rubber band man in some short alley
is bending over backwards , begging you stop, to look, to maybe press yourself right up against the wall and kiss him
But no, you pass on by without a glance
With such finesse, such beauty.
The tormentors put down their sticks, shut their mouths,
and scatter rose petals in your path.
©Skorda 2008

-for hannah lee
what's true

Ta Phota

EarthQuake in Greece

January 6, 2008
-6.5 Richter
-7:14 AM Sunday morning
-seismic center was around the area of Leonidio Peloponissos about 150 km S by SW
-No major Damages reported since seismic activity was 70 km below ground; no Damages in Athens
-No major aftershocks expected
felt all over Greece and parts of Southern Italy
-The sea around Leonidio turned red due to massive amounts of mud that eminated from the underground activity.
of Athens.



Ta Phota

Twelve days passed

Chill gray morning, scented with basil,
The priest walks from the church, smiling
villagers follow, gather at sea's edge.
Young men, hope in their hearts, eyes shining
run down the hill to the shore.
Who will be the strong, the quick, the chosen
the holder of this cross?
With a prayer the priest lifts his hands.
This is Christ, now in the sea.
One, two and then the dive.
Salty water, cold and dark.
Hands grasping and rocks and sand.
One hand closes over the treasure.
Victory! O blessed day!
The earth shakes in reply.
-skorda

2008

The past year just sort of slithered off. I wasn’t able to be home to adhere to the usual traditions, superstitions, etc. No resolutions, no promises to self. Coming home on the train tonight I started thinking about the past year. I tried to think sweet things, but endied up focused on things I do not like and would rather not see, do watch, consume or have continue in the New Year.in this coming year:

Skorda Cranky New Year

Spare me please the status cars, lusty drunks with fat cigars
Internet thieves just waiting to hack
The guy who bends over and shows me his crack
No two minute fucks, no new Starbucks, Rhinestone cellphones? Nada
No big mouthed Rush, fake friends who gush, no skinny girls in in Prada

No neocons or mafia dons, big houses with gates that scream wealth
No people who push, that idiot Bush, or wars begun in stealth
Keep me from bullies and people who fight
Small closed minds, the religious rightt
No biased Fox news or celebrity phonies,
Crooked politicians and all of their cronies

No shows about prisons or Dr Phil
Cyberspace scumbags or children who kill
Stars who dance, that faked wide stance, hybrid dogs in cases
Politicos who choose to lie to cover all their bases.

No sushi that’s old, no coffee that’s cold,
Or food in the fridge all covered with mold
No e.coli or bad microbes
No hateful speaking homophobes

No rich getting richer and still wanting more
Begrudging the pittance that goes to the poor
No giant fake boobs,
shaved stubbly pubes
or piercings in places that always stay sore.
-skorda

mycenae

mycenae
by Giogios Feferis

Give me your hands, give me your hands, give me
your hands.

I have seen in the night
the sharp peak of the mountain,
seen the plain beyond flooded
with the light of an invisible moon,
seen, turning my head,
black stones huddled
and my life taut as a chord
beginning and end
the final moment:
my hands.

Sinks whoever raises the great stones;
I've raised these stones as long as I was able
I've loved these stones as long as I was able
these stones, my fate.
Wounded by my own soil
tortured by my own shirt
condemned by my own gods,
these stones.

I know that they don't know, but I
who've followed so many times
the path from killer to victim
from victim to punishment
from punishment to the next murder,
groping
the inexhaustible purple
that night of the return
when the Furies began whistling
in the meager grassQ
I've seen snakes crossed with viper~
knotted over the evil generation
our fate.

Voices out of the stone out of sleep
deeper here where the world darkens,
memory of toil rooted in the rhythm
beaten upon the earth by feet
forgotten.
Bodies sunk into the foundations
of the other time, naked. Eyes
fixed, fixed on a point
that you can't make out, much as you want to:
the soul
struggling to become your own soul.

Not even the silence is now yours
here where the mill stones have stopped turning.

October 1935

two shades of a blue door

2006

the city

-Konstantine P. Kavafy (1910)
You said, "I will go to another land, I will go to another sea.
Another city will be found, better than this.
Every effort of mine is condemned by fate;
and my heart is -- like a corpse -- buried.
How long in this wasteland will my mind remain.
Wherever I turn my eyes, wherever I may look
I see the black ruins of my life here,
where I spent so many years, and ruined and wasted."

New lands you will not find, you will not find other seas.
The city will follow you. You will roam the same
streets. And you will age in the same neighborhoods;
in these same houses you will grow gray.
Always you will arrive in this city. To another land -- do not hope --
there is no ship for you, there is no road.
As you have ruined your life here
in this little corner, you have destroyed it in the whole world.

since feeling is first

- e.e. cummings

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
—the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

Song to the Moon

Silver moon upon the deep dark sky,
Through the vast night pierce your rays.
This sleeping world you wander by,
Smiling on men's homes and ways.
Oh moon ere past you glide, tell me,
Tell me, oh where does my loved one bide?
Oh moon ere past you glide, tell me
Tell me, oh where does my loved one bide?
Tell him, oh tell him, my silver moon,

-written by Jaroslav Kvapil, for Dvorak's "Song to the Moon"

Feather to Fire

centauria

Chironia
travels swiftly across the plains of Thessaly
galloping towards Dodonia
Achilles, his very self, is young
and strong and beautiful
no fear
there is glory
But Penelope
knows the other side of the story,
that when
one doesn't die,
one must endure
-skorda

creation

Wherever the dead are there they are and
Nothing more. But you and I can expect
To see angels in the meadowgrass that look
Like cows -
And wherever we are in paradise
in furnished room without bath and
six flights up
Is all God! We read
To one another, loving the sound of the s’s
Slipping up on the f’s and much is good
Enough to raise the hair on our heads, like Rilke and Wilfred Owen

Any person who loves another person,
Wherever in the world, is with us in this room -
Even though there are battlefields.

-Kenneth Patchen

November

MY NOVEMBER GUEST

MY Sorrow, when she’s here with me,

Thinks these dark days of autumn rain

Are beautiful as days can be;

She loves the bare, the withered tree;

She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.

She talks and I am fain to list:

She’s glad the birds are gone away,

She’s glad her simple worsted gray

Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,

The faded earth, the heavy sky,

The beauties she so truly sees,

She thinks I have no eye for these,

And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know

The love of bare November days

Before the coming of the snow,

But it were vain to tell her so,

And they are better for her praise.

by: Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Thought for today

"I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance." ee cummings