Elsa Korneti [Greece]

 

 

Bearing Humanity’s Pain

I stand amazed
And look at me
Turned into what I always dreamed of
Slow and steady of step
Faithful servant of law and order
Dogged follower of the straight and narrow
I freeze into my assigned position
Rusty of joint
I struggle to pick myself up when I fall
A key bores obstinately into my back
Never one to complain
I endure all without a word
Steely of sensibility
Dead of tongue
I throw myself on the mercy
Of those who scourge me, those who break me
Those who beat me, those who reject me
Just this, let it suffice me
To be remembered now and forever
For that which I always dreamed of
For that which I have become
A little Wind-up Man                             
 
 
 
Doll House
 
When you were just a young ‘un
you played hide and seek with dolls for fun
and that’s how one fine day
you ran off and hid away
somewhere where you left no trail
Then, locked in a Lilliputian jail
you found yourself by accident
By accident the cat swallowed the key
By accident no-one noticed your truancy
 
And by accident one day you grew
Your arms hung out of the windows
Your legs out of the door
Your head poked out of the chimney flue.
 
And your doll house prison break
by mistake was believed to be
a mutiny.
 
 

Product of New Technology
 
She has learnt the lesson:
All breaks must be dealt with quickly
Detached bits glued to whatever is within reach
Hand to foot
Finger to eye
Nose to belly
Ear to heel
So that everything may be pieced back together --
crookedly
the wrong way round
grotesquely even --
In time before her sundered parts
Are sucked in by the latest state of the art
Electric Vacuum.
 
(Translated by Patricia Felisa Barbeito) 
 
 
 
Author’s Bionote:
 
*Elsa Korneti was born in Munich, Germany, but raised in Greece. She is poet, essayist and novelist. After her studies in Finance, she worked as a journalist. Collaborating with literary magazines she publishes poems, short stories, essays, book reviews, translations. Her poems and short stories have appeared in numerous well known literary magazines.  Part of her work among all books have been translated and published in foreign anthologies and literary magazines in many European languages and in Chinese. She has published 16 books, among them 11 poetry collections and compositions. Two of her poetry collections and one collection with short stories have been nominated for the National Literature Award. Recently she has been awarded in Italy the Mediterranean Prize of Poetry 2025.

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