Dinos Siotis, Greece

Por: Dinos Siotis

HELP ME GOD

A letter has arrived declaring
the innocence of untranslatable

texts. Doric silence rolls over
to the edge of globalization

Step by step I walk behind you
holding the handbag of gentle notes

You hand me the torn pages
of your blind moments

I want to become a flash on your teeth
You say, No way, so help me God.

REFUGEES

At the end of the dead sea of silence
a crowd that looks like rocks

There is a convoy of psalms coming out
of the rocks who look like refugees

The psalms pause with
desert’s every pulse

The refugees spread about
the geography of pain while

The moonlight protects the litany
of their tents where they go

To have a hundred dreams,
a hundred, and counting

SPACE FOR POETS

The reward for peace
is having a life free of evil eyes

The reward of life free of evil eyes
is having angels cleaning our living room

We don’t expect that sponges will erase
our passionate tempers from the blackboard

But we do reserve space for poets from the suburbs
who come like birds hovering over shinning fields

Time is buried in the horizon
and our hearts beat like a tin hanging from a fig tree

WE JOG

Out of boredom we jog
Out of sympathy for the dead
We serve ephemera to the living

On our days off we collect darkness and
Place it in friendly memory shelves

Each time we blink the view changes
From certainty to dilemma
And the tea grows greener in the porcelain pot

When the moon falls on our wine glasses
We know there is a surplus
Which means that unpainted narratives will unfold

WALKING ON WATER

Having learned how to walk on coals
We easily learned how to walk on water
In the beginning things were a bit difficult
We drenched our trouser cuffs and our wives wet
The hems of their dresses, the boys splashed
Scared, there was fear in every step and any
Instability made us tremble. We always
Started from the shallows and ended up
On the open sea.

The trick was not to think of the water
But to concentrate on other things
Such as green days in the countryside
Spring valleys filled with poppies
Tufts of hair in fired up cheeks
Red eyes in train stations

Now we’ve gotten used
To walking on water
We are so cool at it
That we have trouble walking on the ground

THE BACHELOR’S FRIDGE

I am a bachelor
and I always eat out
but my fridge is full all the time

On the lower shelf
lettuce, tomatoes and radicchio are thriving
on the next shelf up
cheeses from France, Holland, Greece and Italy,
on the fridge door wine, milk, juices
eggs and butter

When I open the fridge
to see what’s inside
I imagine that behind me
in the empty room
is a family waiting for lunch
and as I bend to take out the salad
from the corner of my eye I see the children
sitting down to eat

The youngest child will say the prayer
but I will put on my coat
and go out to eat
since I am a bachelor

FOUND IN TRANSLATION

Pale sunsets confirm the theory of lost languages,
flowers spring up in foreign forests
viewing the ancient hills of the lost and found,
translate me completely before I learn another world
(I cannot change the world so I switch worlds)
words expect me to shut them up in dictionaries
plant them in a website for the blind,
I wake up untranslatable in a foreign tongue,
I pay my bills in dollars after I exchange drachmas
I eat Chinese food with Thai accent
I speak with a foreign accent
I listen to Thelonius Monk playing Greek themes
I go to Italian opera with French surtitles
I give a thump to mother tongues
(a thump up to mothers, too)
I see the foreign news shrink into
paradigms of transliteration

And all that for one purpose only: to arrive

Boston, August 7, 2000

Dino Siotis  born in Tinos, Greece, on 19 December 1944. He is a poet, novelist, essayist, journalist, diplomat, and editor of several literary and political journals. He was part of the coordinating committee of the World Poetry Movement.

He has published over twenty books in Greek and English, including: So What, 1972; Foreign Territory, 2001; The Solstice of the Angels, 2006; Peeling the Poem, 2010; Crisis, 2014.

In his own words "The mundane is part of the metaphysical and the metaphysical is an extension of reality. The surreal has become real and vice versa. Poetry does not have to make us feel sad or bitter. Poetry may make us strong to face mediocrity, should strengthen our spirit and awake all of us showing us what is real and what lies amidst all the fluff called "life". The true poets are prophets and poetry is the safest way of interpreting life".

Resourses about Dinos Siotis Helleniccomserve.com
Poemas Revista Prometeo # 91-92
One poem Odyssey.pm
Caminando sobre el aguas Youtube revistaprometeo
Poems Genesis.ee.auth.gr

Publishet at June 12th, 2015