In times of great agony where the waters stand still wholeheartedly I summon you. You are dead, they said The sacred darkness engulfs you. I pledge. It lets me see, reluctantly. "You truly loved her" It says. "Come and see how your mother is sleeping." Migratory little bird bird of a foreign land her hands like wings are folded. Translated by Vasilis S. Botsios

When that time comes I will show you my footprints upon the soil you reared me up retrace them back and you will find a bridge You built it- along with mother one morning at "The Mother" (*) and no one has knocked it down. Forty-five builders and sixty apprentices are hailing you. and I, like water, drink you, quenched my thirst and the Master Builder grew old alongside his wife kids and grandkids they saw. So, wait for me on this bridge and when my time comes some others will show me the footprints upon the soil I reared them up and, let's suppose, arbitrarily you bequeathed the bridge builder's craft deservedly, to me. You, the Master-Builder, built this bridge where no man been ever haunted only been loved. Translated by Vasilis S. Botsios [*] Infant Center "The Mother": Public institution of Greece which historically was the largest adoption center in the country.

Ink runs through your veins. Hematologists have been puzzled yet they’ve filled several vials for solitude emergencies. Translated by Ioannis Dimitiriadis.

Breaking up is a harsh season. You never know how to dress. You put on a final decision and you’re cold. You put on a hope of reunion and feel too warm. So you hastily throw on anything within memory’s reach even if they tell you you’ve been wearing the same clothes for years. Translated by Ioannis Dimitiriadis.

Since I’ve called sadness by it’s first name confining me in a poem has been deemed necessary. Translated by Ioannis Dimitiriadis.

Who will defend our life’s frontiers when needed? Reality will conquer us without a fight. It’s time we took real measures against low fertility of dreams. *Akritai: in Byzantine Empire, term denoting the army units guarding the Empire’s borders. Translated by Ioannis Dimitiriadis.

The moon has risen early behind you. From anywhere I see it, a byzantine saint is looking me in the eyes. As an iconoclast, time calls for your deposition. Translated by Ioannis Dimitiriadis.

The good poet fishes with a rod and waits. The bad one uses dynamite and catches dead words. Translated by Ioannis Dimitiriadis.

The classroom smelled of a foregone summer and you could hear through the walls time memorizing vanity. Utterly unprepared the teacher copied from the chalkboard the dust we shall become Translated by Ioannis Dimitiriadis.

A heartbreaking Sunday I’ll be thinking of you I’d like to come back home without memory and get scolded by my mother ’cause I don’t take care of my things Translated by Ioannis Dimitiriadis.

As much as you may hide collaborator winds will blow from inside you and deliver you naked to the tortures of memory Translated by Ioannis Dimitiriadis.

A lucid decision of up-bringing enlightens more than a dark mother that nature surprised once in her sleep Translated by Ioannis Dimitiriadis.

I close the door and leave outside stories I’d live with you. You come through the cracks – light on thick darkness. I get confused. fourty years-miles now I hear expectation crawling and think it’s your hand reaching for mine in the dark to leave a newborn apology. Translated by Ioannis Dimitiriadis.

Every first of the year since you left I enter with the right hand in a white page to see if I can put a name to my sorrow so that it does not go without meaning. Every carnival I disguise scarcity in fullness and place my memory in lotus position to see if I can forget you I cut up the pages left blank into tiny little pieces and make confetti that I throw on time’s face. Translated by Ioannis Dimitiriadis.

The time I’ve waited for you demands to be treated equally with the time I’ve pretended you were here. “Impossible” I say and sentense it to grieve in an unfinished poem. Translated by Ioannis Dimitiriadis.