English

Nostalgia - two poems

We adored this Earth so, my Lord with a love that I am afraid what is waiting us as we depart is to find our minds thinking only of her always running back to our own village Read more Diasporic Literature »

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Nothing

I, the most perfect syllable in the world. It encapsulates me and all that is mine And all that I perceive or have perceived, All that I encountered or experienced, the Totality of my existence and its meaning To me and the ripples of its influence, little Or large, on the world around it, completely Ensconced within this one tiny utterance That takes a fragment of a moment to Attain its meaning in its full complexity That mocks at any naive attempt on the Part of the “Categorizers” to encumber it With a fixed definition or to decipher its Ever variable, ever evolving, ever fluid Semantics. Definition may bring solace To the rationalists, but it brings not Truth. Read more Diasporic Literature »

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Pomegranate red

Is this the red that it should have dispersing art on painters' canvas? the red that matadors withhold from charging bulls, the basis of a fare lady’s smile? Is this the red that brightens skies, turning green leaves to yellow while branches shaking at the wind to cast a morning mist? Read more Diasporic Literature »

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The Missing Pieces

Research sheds light on the missing persons of Cyprus who disappeared without a trace during the Turkish invasion of 1974. Andrea Stylianou talks to "Neos Kosmos" about her academic achievements and being a human rights advocate. Read more Diasporic Literature »

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Whisper / Ψίθυρος

You only felt it didn’t hear it though you turned without saying any word and looked at me Read more Diasporic Literature »

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The Medusa Glance

The Medusa Glance is a present-day triptych, a rich and profoundly nuanced contemporary narrative, sensitive to all the immanent and minute shades of reality, aspiring to embrace and incorporate the whole spectrum of lived experience. As a key motive, the author invokes Medusa, the female monster with venomous snakes on hear head. Stricken with fear, we are nonetheless tempted to be immersed in the poetic universe of Manolis. The epigraph characterizes the bold enterprise of the author aimed at the explicitation of the inner architecture and dynamics of experience, at the renewal of narrative practices and at the constant (re)negotiation of identity. The reader is swept away by a polychromatic tempest of verbs and embarks on a journey guiding him to the dimension of the minute and infinitely multifarious undulations of sublunary consciousness. Read more Diasporic Literature »

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The dome of hope

A church bell from the distand past keeps sounding powerlessly in my ears The lonely church where the half-burnt candle pure and fragnant still stands by St Mamas' icon Read more Diasporic Literature »

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21st March 2017 - World Day of Poetry

Diasporic Literature is continuing the tradition of a special edition of its periodical for the World Day of Poetry on March 21, as declared by the United Nations. Η Diasporic Literature συνεχίζοντας μια πορεία άξιας αντιπροσώπευσης των ποιητών κατά την Παγκόσμια Ημέρα Ποίησης στις 21 Μαρτίου, όπως ανακοινώθηκε από τα Ηνωμένα Έθνη εκδίδει αυτή την ηλεκτρονική προσπάθεια πενήντα-οκτώ ποιητών. Ατόμων που δεν μπορούν να ζήσουν δίχως τη δημιουργία, που δεν μπορούν να δημιουργήσουν δίχως ποίηση. Read more Diasporic Literature »

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Φολέγανδρος

Δεν θα το δουν τα μάτια μου εκείνο το νησί. Δεν πρόλαβα… Με πρόφτασε ο καιρός που χάλασε, μ΄ εμπόδισε η φουρτούνα που έπιασε. «Απαγορεύεται ο απόπλους». Κι αυτή η κακοκαιρία φαίνεται πως θα κρατάει για πάντα. Απαγορεύεται η Φολέγανδρος για μένα, ακόμα κι αν το επιτρέψει η μπουνάτσα να αμολήσουν τα καράβια. Read more Diasporic Literature »

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Euphemisms of an old lady

The old lady had never learned anything else in her life except to drop blessings from her lips, as if the blessings sustained her. Her eyelash colour faded, her face was a mass of wrinkles. " Daughter, give me the votive candle so I may light it, and may you reign like a queen one day". On Sundays, in the courtyard under the vine, they'd turn on the radio. "Daughter, bring the radio, and may you pick up soil and have it turned to gold in your hands". Read more Diasporic Literature »

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Oia, Santorini

That familiar, deep redness of the sunset: Is it the sunset or is it blood? A question posed by the sun, or a slaughter? Read more Diasporic Literature »

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Two times Twenty

Not a deep feeling did we declare, nor did we live a great love affair. Wrong or right, we only shared a night. Read more Diasporic Literature »

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The Bookshop on Saint Andrew’s Street

It’s no longer there… a “We’ve Moved” sign placed up high… some things can’t be moved immediately or afterwards such as the pages, folded at the edges, to be read less than to be recollected, such as the queue in front of the cash register such as the backbones of saints I search for the bookshop on Saint Andrew’s Street… terribly ill by its absence after all, this is where the hours passed their hours with me, and the hours search insistently for that which can’t be moved or migrated, which oppresses and suspends generations… Read more Diasporic Literature »

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St. Panteleimon of Old

When you're out on your way to Mt Olympus, let the road trip be a long one full of wonder, full of autumn colors full of yellow-green trees and mountain plains. Read more Diasporic Literature »

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Αμφιβολία - Doubt

Ο νέος που πρόσμενες να `ρθει δεν ήρθε μήτε απόψε. Μα τί θα του `λεγες; Γιατί; Άσε τα μάταιο να χαθή. The young man you expected hasn’t come tonight. What would you tell him? Why? Let the futile vanish cut the unfortunate sprout. Read more Diasporic Literature »

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Holidays

My friend Rena called yesterday, She said,” It’s summer and I’m going away.” I asked, “Do you think that’s right. We won’t see each other for a fortnight?” She responded, “I’m going to Skopelos.” I queried, “Do you think that’s ophelos? There, there are thousands of trees But no breeze. Read more Diasporic Literature »

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Melbourne winter

Spring sometimes visits us in Melbourne, midwinter while pansies cannot tell the difference, so it seems; fountain waters flow unabated of rocky spills. Read more Diasporic Literature »

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Godly Justice

Shadows in their solace can have a room a sofa, or nothing! Can have water a piece of bread or nothing! They hang their curiosity over balconies buildings or gorges! They are blasted by “friendly bombs”! Read more Diasporic Literature »

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Three in one

You must never walk behind me, for I may not lead you the right way. Read more Diasporic Literature »

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Το προσφυγόπουλο και η Μάσκα μου

Είμαι ηθοποιός, κατά βάθος πολιτικός, στο καμαρίνι λύνω σταυρόλεξο, ψάχνω πράσινα άλογα, χαζεύω στην τηλεόραση. Ένας σπουργίτης ραμφίζει το τζάμι μου να δω τις ειδήσεις: ένα παιδάκι ξαγρυπνά μπρος στα πτώματα των γονιών του, μετά το ανεβάζουν σε βάρκα, προσφυγόπουλο το βγάζει η θάλασσα στην άμμο για αιώνιο ύπνο, στην τσεπούλα του ένα τετράδιο όπου έγραψε: ‘Θα σας καταγγείλω όλους στον Θεούλη μου…’ Read more Diasporic Literature »

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Antigone!

I first saw you, by the sea shore... Oh, Antigone! Your white robe, soiled made your face unbearably pale! There was a heavy earthy smell in the air, that of a burial site! Read more Diasporic Literature »

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At the Metro Station

I clamber down the stairs to Argiroupole metro station, heading to work, in central Athens. She’s sitting in one of the benches there, dark-skinned, dark-haired, probably a Roma, in her twenties. A long, limp pony tail, a shabby, red T-shirt, a flared, flowery skirt, tattered flip-flops. An equally scruffy two or three-year-old boy is wringing out of her grasp. Read more Diasporic Literature »

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On the Phone

‘I know you and dad wanted something else for me but- Yeah, a rich, pot-bellied prince. You think mine is a frog, eh? He loves me to bits, mum; he really cares, that’s what matters.’ Sonia punches the pen’s tip fast against the notepad on the coffee table, peppering the white sheet with inky dots. ‘We’ll find something to eat. He’ll get a job. Read more Diasporic Literature »

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You Reap what you Sow

Tzoras jots down the date of the primary school students’ last excursion this year. A week before his son’s University entrance exams. He couldn’t possibly be absent from this critical moment in his son’s life. He unlocks the top desk drawer and takes out a deck of cards with famous actresses on he’d bought on an educational trip to Thessaloniki. He counts them. Fifty one. One’s missing. Fingers move deep into the drawer, through grade books and the register, under the desk pad. Nowhere. Read more Diasporic Literature »

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Children

Give children as little as a smile and they will smile back at you. Give them your hand and they will stretch out to reach you. Read more Diasporic Literature »

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