Greek koine
The great languages,
once resilient to glory and death
slowly lose their radiance
-I ponder-
glancing at the warm vapor of
streaming sunlight
that climbs the window sill unhurried
On the eighth day of Tevet
(that January shimmered with lights)
the Torah
-all five of its books-
on the background cadence
of voiceless and half-voiced consonants
that so often embarrassed even
the Seventy
were translated into Greek.
That type of common barbarous Greek
the syllables abrupt
no prosody
no breathings
that carved into the page
like the feet of a cicada.
On the eighth day of Tevet
(when days were not yet fully days)
likely in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus
-pharaoh familiar with the scriptures and
their glory-
darkness fell upon the world
for days three.
we do not know.
Whether history recovered from the dread
of falling into a common language.
Whether wickedness was defeated.
Whether the reliefs were lowered
for wisdom has crossed the universe like a whirlwind.
Nebuchadnezzar the Great
razed Jerusalem.
I would blossom into the poem.
No sound
Not a noise was found to redeem it.
We are in shadows.
Around us objects
all those small familiar things that bound us
animated with peace
recite their names: chair, table, crock.
I mull over the great loves
springtime
like a rhythmically heaving chest
your face pressed against the window
and the window
(a strange plant dances in the rain).
Wind hovers over the stars.
Drowsy colonies of moss
burn side-by-side in silence.
How is the night so dark
if the sky is lurking
if right outside the moon
and this earth’s mystical life—
Your lips are chilled
and the dawn will come
like snow flooding down from a purple cloud.
The
Body of Dead Christ in the Tomb
(Hans Holbein Jr., 1521 Oil on Wood
Kunstmuseum Öffentliche Kunstsammulung, Basle)
My grave looks to the south
if winter finds you—come.
It smells of soft fresh rot.
From afar you can’t make out the
line of eyelid
the knot of breathing inside the black lips.
The face almost grazes the wet stone.
He sees exactly what he should.
I cannot tell what he truly sees.
Above ground
flowers made of fresh air and others
(too delicate to be named earthly beings)
blossom in the air
protecting the human-god from his mortal flesh.
I notice.
The hand hesitates.
The finger (dead) yet anxious.
They know when flesh grows into knowledge.
What the lips of hushed desire whisper
to his pristine silk-covered sex
and you—
Aren’t
you perfect, a perfect being
made of logic born of truth
It’s not you who begins here
in the upper left corner of this page
without
the memory of any touch
having crossed drowsy lands in darkness
(stolen words) (laugher) (prayers) (laments)
a whiteness
with no light—
(is this the end?)
into your days
while the rain settles
(is this the end of it?)
inside your body—
you
free of hurried constraints
carefully erasing every single mark left behind
having doubted or not erred having let this happen
created
(red lights up the flower of your thought upon thinking)
having created well enough
that this dead Christ here—
Again: Put the alphabet in order:
Begin: Again:
New words replace old words each morning
wrenching privacy from eternity.
The dense morning air floods the grass with caresses.
The fear
because (and with this thought an uneasy tenderness
writhes inside you)
fear holds you
it
is not real.
Greedy the gaze coils
(through successive slants of light)
with all itself against it.
Remember:
You’re the only outline for this design
this language was made
to protect you
besides
where
if truth is not spoken here
else
(in a moment of elusive clarity)
where else would you turn your gaze—
You bend to shuffle flowers in vases for the dead.
Your mouth now filled with ash.
You try to remember.
How you could ever manage with such shiny things.
Turn your gaze
(whisper something)
and (inexplicably blissful)
get carried away by the rhythm of decay
for you cannot dance to this static beat.
Author’s Bionote:
*Dimitra Kotoula (1974) is the author of four poetry collections. Her poems, essays, and translations—primarily of works by contemporary American poets such as Louise Glück (Nobel Prize 2020), Jorie Graham, and Sharon Olds—have been widely published in leading European and American literary journals. She has received in Greece the Chartis Poetry Award (2021) and the Hellenic State Prize for Poetry (2025). Selected poems by Kotoula have been translated into thirteen languages. In 2023, an anthology of her poetry, translated by Maria Nazos with a foreword by A.S. (Alicia) Stallings, was published in the U.S. The volume was reviewed in the “TLS”, shortlisted for the Runciman Award, and features in the recommendations of the Poetry Society of America. Poems from her current work on Homer have been selected to open the 80th anniversary celebration of the Penguin Classics series. She lives with her daughter in Athens and works as an archaeologist/art-historian.
if winter finds you—come.
the knot of breathing inside the black lips.
The face almost grazes the wet stone.
He sees exactly what he should.
I cannot tell what he truly sees.
Above ground
flowers made of fresh air and others
(too delicate to be named earthly beings)
blossom in the air
protecting the human-god from his mortal flesh.
I notice.
The hand hesitates.
The finger (dead) yet anxious.
They know when flesh grows into knowledge.
What the lips of hushed desire whisper
to his pristine silk-covered sex
made of logic born of truth
It’s not you who begins here
in the upper left corner of this page
having crossed drowsy lands in darkness
(stolen words) (laugher) (prayers) (laments)
a whiteness
with no light—
(is this the end?)
into your days
while the rain settles
(is this the end of it?)
inside your body—
you
free of hurried constraints
carefully erasing every single mark left behind
having doubted or not erred having let this happen
created
(red lights up the flower of your thought upon thinking)
having created well enough
that this dead Christ here—
Begin: Again:
New words replace old words each morning
wrenching privacy from eternity.
The dense morning air floods the grass with caresses.
The fear
because (and with this thought an uneasy tenderness
writhes inside you)
fear holds you
Greedy the gaze coils
(through successive slants of light)
with all itself against it.
You’re the only outline for this design
this language was made
to protect you
besides
if truth is not spoken here
else
(in a moment of elusive clarity)
where else would you turn your gaze—
You bend to shuffle flowers in vases for the dead.
Your mouth now filled with ash.
You try to remember.
How you could ever manage with such shiny things.
Turn your gaze
(whisper something)
and (inexplicably blissful)
get carried away by the rhythm of decay
for you cannot dance to this static beat.
Author’s Bionote:
*Dimitra Kotoula (1974) is the author of four poetry collections. Her poems, essays, and translations—primarily of works by contemporary American poets such as Louise Glück (Nobel Prize 2020), Jorie Graham, and Sharon Olds—have been widely published in leading European and American literary journals. She has received in Greece the Chartis Poetry Award (2021) and the Hellenic State Prize for Poetry (2025). Selected poems by Kotoula have been translated into thirteen languages. In 2023, an anthology of her poetry, translated by Maria Nazos with a foreword by A.S. (Alicia) Stallings, was published in the U.S. The volume was reviewed in the “TLS”, shortlisted for the Runciman Award, and features in the recommendations of the Poetry Society of America. Poems from her current work on Homer have been selected to open the 80th anniversary celebration of the Penguin Classics series. She lives with her daughter in Athens and works as an archaeologist/art-historian.