Eftichia-Alexandra Loukidou [Greece]

 

Contro-Ruolo
                                                                        “Blessed are those who mourn,
                                                                          for they shall be comforted”.
                                                                                            (Matthew 5:4)
 
The bee swarm is buzzing over its harvest
apiarists and opportunists swagger
their conceit scrapes the sky
dressed in the gown of the judge,
the advocate of the weaker.
Their white walking stick duly hidden
under conference seats
contest results
travel bags to the provinces of flash.
But they, blind vigilants
specialize in crushing and stinging –
scorpions, their only opponent
is their own spit.
And yet, out of this rampage
tenderness is raining thunders
into the core of the mourners.
 
If I transform
I will exist whole, they are thinking
in the way defined by losses
̶ that is to say if I transform into fuzz  ̶
whole like total disorder
like the brave admission
of my fear to join in.
And so I will carry on clueless
swim insignificant and marginal
to every possibility
a few pages of life unread
by the illiterate times.
 
Then they can hear “yes” flowing down the room
[Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki composes the Third Symphony
Offenbach The Barcarolle
“I was born to love”, Antigone retorts]
 
unsleepy, the “yes” checks the passages
sheathes brambles and blackthorns with fuzz
and it is them, with dewy fingers
leaning over the paper
those that rub and press fiercely
̶  obessively and fiercely
to cleanse life from its persistent stain. 
 

They Used to Live at the Same House
 
 They would relocate the Kilimanjaro
move Mount Olympus close to the sea

for a moment’s peace between them.
 
But what they had instead

was an innate melancholy
full of shades and unruly swerves

that would not stand still in the firmament
awkwardness and doubt
like emigrants that haven’t had news
from home for so long.
They used to lean forward and mirror themselves

in their school portraits
bleeding sawn off feathers
night and day
some of them were caught
into the net of their hammock.

It wasn’t a hammock
a plexus of slipperiness and constant void
and improvised frustration varied.
It wasn’t cohesive bandage

it was a ravine unspelled
between significance and the invisible.

  

Rust extends
beyond metal and its shine.
The syndrom of the self-divers is lurking.
They won’t drown.
Speechless they run through potentials
without complaint.
Unruffled unbreakable sadness comes to their aid.
 
Ants on their kitchen counter
are methodically headed
towards the grain of sugar. 
 
 
Dessert
 
For a change, dear friends, I suggest
that we start the evening with dessert.
Besides, you never know what might happen
dangerously ill that we are. 
 
And if we were lucky up till now
and sometimes we lay down  
without forgiveness
it was because we believed
that sudden separation
does not concern us.
 
We always reserved a pew
for them
but then
how many crimes
do you think are premeditated?
 
We hoped − naïve that we are −  
in a causeless magnanimity.
We even felt grateful
for never knowing
to whom in particular we owed it.
 
Yet the threat was here.
It still is.
Toasts and whistles
in no way avert it.
 
So, as a result, dear friends
and to be precautious
tonight let us start
with dessert.
 
 
Author’s Bionote:
 
*Eftichia-Alexandra Loukidou was born in Munich, Germany and is of Constantinopolitan descent. She lives in Thessaloniki, Greece where she studied at the Faculty of Philosophy, AUTH. She teaches creative writing in Thessaloniki and Cyprus. Poetry: “Sad daisies”, (1986), “The triptych of shimmer” (1993), “Momentous homecoming” (1999), “Let's Blossom till nothing” (Kastaniotis, 2004), “Basement level one” (Kastaniotis, 2008, 2nd ed. 2009), “The dessert” (Kedros 2012, 2nd & 3rd ed.2013, Shortlisted for the National Literary Award),“Unworn Wonders” (Kedros, 2017), “The porter of days” (Kedros, 2022). Study: “Face stitching. A visit to Orestis’s Alexakis poetry” (Neos Astrolavos/Efthini 2012), “Beyond writing. Essays about Poetry”, (Kedros 2015), “In the back gardens single word. Essays about Poetry”, (Romi 2019). She is a member of the Hellenic Authors’ Society, of the Writers’ Society Thessaloniki, of the ‘Poets Circle’. Her poems were translated into English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Albanian, Bulgarian and are included in Greek and foreign anthologies.