A FOREIGN HAND (ZERVAS YIANNIS)

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“Zervas lifted an arm weakly and placed it on a large book next to him. ¡I have a confession.¢ he stated weakly.¡I am not the bard I pretend to be.¢”

From Black-Eyed Blonde (futuristic internet novel)

BLIND

For a blind world
Of sucking sounds
Smacking lips
Angry hisses
Blowing away
A useless sky

Sanskrit epitaph

So many words
All dead
Salute the sky

SUCH PAIN

Trying to keep life
Away
From death
Trying
To keep death
Away
Trying
To create Life
Trying
Trying
To keep life
Away
From no Life
From dead

(ends)

W.C.

To Edgar William Shakespoe

O, little room of poems
Word Closet of delightful dreams!
Taps and faucets leaking sunset
Sparkling bright o¢er bowl and sink!

Yet, inside this steamy silence
Sealed away from mortal love,
Echoing the woes of angels
Painted under porcelain coves,

Deep inside this hall of mirrors
In this crypt of running verse,
Grows a feeble gruesome sight,

Fully wrapped in paper white;
T¢is the embryo of sonnet,
Abstruse excrement of mind.

(fecit Yannis Zervas)

Time Still

He had stopped
Years ago
(Fifty million of them perhaps
Or just
One day)

Still
(-ness)

marked time
lost

in
between

(I was listening attentively
to him
reformatting the past)

klickety clack clckclck clck klickety clack clckclck clck klickety clack
clckclck clck klickety clack clckclck

(He remembered in such a way
that all seemed forgotten
as he reshaped the past to fit
his nostalgia)

clickety clackclckclck clickety clackclckclck clickety clackclckclck clickety
clackclckclck clickety clackclckclack

On translating a greek column

Half-broken                                          Broken
Leaning                                                Leaning
Unburying                                             Burying
Words                                                 Words
Half-dead                                             Undead

THE PENDULUM

Right. Left. Right.
His eyes fixed
On the pendulum
Like a tennis match.
His head cupped in his hands
His elbows mounted on the table
His chair nailed to the floor
Over the floor below
Fixed on another floor
Built on foundations
Of ruins unexplored
Of ancient cities
Buried inside other cities
Layers upon layers of fossil
Down to the dense centre of the earth
Enflamed, revolving
Among nebulae and galaxies
Wedged deep into the universe

Yet, he is always there.
Only his gaze travels.
Right. Left. Over again.
Patient, in minor orbit,
Longing for the centre
That he cannot see.