transpolia (fragments re-set)

I asked him once:

“How does it feel to be called a loghotékhnis?”
[Greek akin to “wordsmith” or “litterateur.”]

His answer:

“These two words
lóghos and tékhni
[‘the word’ and ‘art’]
stuck together leave me uneasy.
I prefer the lightness of the word
kímeno [‘text’]…

“There aren’t any nice [Greek] words
to describe those who write.
Senariográfos [‘screenwriter’] isn’t nice.
Syngraféas [‘author’] isn’t nice either.

“Isn’t it tragic? To write,
but for the words
that describe what you do
to be horrible?

“Whereas khoreftís, for example,
now that’s a lovely word
to describe those who dance
– simple, with a nice ring to it,
it’s a word that only makes them
want to dance more.”

i come in(side) take off my coat take off my shoes go to the bathroom shower dry myself off. head to the kitchen eat something drink water go out onto the balcony look out. come back in lie down on the bed tuck myself in.

[or else]

come in(side) / coat off / shoes off / go to bathroom / shower / dry off / go to kitchen / eat something / drink water / go out onto balcony / take in view / come back in(side) / lie down on bed / cover up

I find a plaque of hieroglyphics and
a modern neon sign equally fascinating.

Inside the penguin constellation
beside a very little fire
we’re sat in two knit beanies
playing games with bits of ice
from back when we were young.

Yesterday, we ran away from home.
Now the frozen lake lies all around us.

Hush, don’t cry…
Kaleidoscope-like, the cosmos is unfurling
in shattered colours, luminous glass shards.
Just say the word
and this night will be made a spaceship
lit bright by our secrets.

Inside the penguin constellation
in the silence of deep space
we count out dying comets
and night-echoes rising from dark planet Earth…

…that creaks away on giant cogs
with churches for invisible gods
and all around are killers and the dead
with armies, jails, insane asylums
and acts of love transacted –
but don’t you fear, we two are here.

Inside the penguin constellation
beside a very little fire
we’re sat in two knit beanies
playing games with bits of ice
from back when we were young.

Our old lives now are scattered away
and what tomorrow brings no-one can say.

Hush, don’t cry…
Tonight we’re lost in space so vast
but you and I will be each other’s nest.
Just say the word and the white bear
will come to us at midnight
and gather us two up, tight in its warm embrace…

It is that thing whose first experience you fear.
A thing too hard to handle. A thing too hard to face.
It is that thing that when you finally give in
becomes a life essential that changes everything.

Let me go see with mine own eyes
how my beloved spends his time.
Might he have found some other love
and left me all alone?

Who was it told you that, my little sapling?
Who said I love you not, my little hatchling?
Was it the sun afar? It shall not rise again.
And so the morning star shall never come.

…Like a plank off some sorry wreck,
so drifts our Old World

…Sure, it once loved
the ideals of humankind,
but the birds
were flying off ahead

Harsh, heartless world
that never once opened an umbrella
over the tree being drenched

But at night, how lovely it is,
the smell of earth…

Look now oh just look,

at the amaranth, all look!

At that never fading flower,

how it roots up on the peaks!

Look just how it roots,

how it roots where none dare tread.

Takes root where none dare tread,

in among the stones and scree.

Never, oh no never…

No never is it watered!

Oh never is it watered

nor its tender tips clipped.

Eaten, oh ’tis eaten

by mild deer that drop down dead.

Deer eat it and drop dead,

wild beasts eat it and grow tame.

Phase One: me – the material,
I destroy – remake it.
Phase Two: two different materials
crashing into – repelling – attracting one another.
Phase Three: the material – the audience
reshape – reform it.
Phase Four: the material in and of itself
is altered – compressed – broken down – transformed.
My colour: red. Ever red, from very pale through to black.
My intent: humanity and its anguish, protests and conflicts, desertion and redemption.
Art is a biological necessity.

Missolónghi! Pride and joy of History herself,
Promised Land! A century slips past…
So be it. Remembrance – timeless – down before you
ever bows.