angelos michail spartalis

aphrodite

ATHENS, JANUARY 1999 / Translated by Tatiana Stavroulaki

text also available in Greek

....

ENTRANCE


Your face
By the bright window
Brighter

And your shadow
On the dark wall
Darker

You are the contrasts
In my life
Of this I will talk

I


On you
I put no lines
Neither bridges

I want the route of the train
With the stream engine
To meet the rivers' courses accidentally
The thread of life to take shape

And you
To hear rumble
Between your legs

....

....

II


You are naked
And in an oil painting in the gallery
Motionless

In still afternoons
I stand before your frame

I talk, I laugh to you but you
Pretend not to remember me

I just get to kiss you
On the feet

On the mouth
Before the keeper sends me away

III


Wet, drunk
You lean over and full asleep

Your crescent, curved body
In its initial, embryon position

Imprints itself on the sheet
Sinks into the soft mattress

And the bed
Becomes your mould

Later,
When you are lo longer here

I fill your mould with sea
And copy you

Again,
And again, at the same time

I put you at the window
At the door, on the steps

In the soil of the beautiful garden
To plant sunflowers

....

....

IV


Your back at night
A negative of the sky

Bright
With black stars

Your neck bitten
By a rabid animal

Has its own
Crimson stars

And in your hair
Pinned like a hair stick

A full moon desire
For love

Sheds light
For me to walk

V


On your unseasoned hand tonight I sway
And it, like a twig that bends
Throws me high up and again and again
Before I approach the earth I am already higher

Until my body shakes and my envelopment
My human form founders
While I still exist as an image
In reality I am condensed in one single dot

From where light wells out in blazes
With curved orbits that surround and pierce your own body too
Which shakes as well and founders in turn
In clamour and dance

The dance that you rule, the dance that I follow
But I do not take oaths on
Nor will I come to you through a straight line
A line symbolizes death

On your unseasoned hand I want to sway
And like a twig I want it to bend
And beat the most resonant drums
That summoned you to me and vice versa

....

....

VI


I talk
About you

Words keep their independence
Always

But I have no strength
I will depend on you and you

Will come no more
To my house

VII


I stand stooped, leaning against the wall
Like a tree bent by the wind

I hear you
In the next room laughing

Your laughter wet drops
Flow from your eyes

Salty laughter
Sea weeping

Ships travel on them
Ghost ships

And I
Unable to catch them, get on them
Cannot move
Turn my iron head
I cannot sail, see you again

I will no longer travel
Along your human body

If the wall collapses, I will still stand stooped
Leaning on my crouch

....

....

IIΧ


Sperm gushes out of the body
Like hot air
That escapes the torn-up balloon
And forces it to fly in craze

The body escapes its course
And hits the walls
The floors

Goes out of the open windows

In the end
The fatal fall
Happens, always

OUTRO


I throw you
Into the sea

With my iron head
Tied fast round your neck

You submerge quickly
Into the oceans

Goodbye then, I will wait silent
Till your emergence

Aphrodite

....

angelos michail spartalis

aphrodite

ATHENS, JANUARY 1999