Dimoula Kiki poetry
VERSION OF CREATION
I’m listed, said chaos to the contractors.
Inside, things have to remain as they are.
Minor changes to the façade is all I’ll allow.
In the beginning appeared yesterday. In no time,
as soon as the visionary sense
on first seeing the day constructed cried
heavens, you’re so short. You won’t do
not even for one person’s loneliness.
The clay was alarmed. What was wrong?
In the plans the day seemed endless.
I saw loaded with bricks and earth
a suspicious orange truck.
The sunset’s dirty work?
The constructor nowhere to be seen.
The decorator pleasure was urgently called in.
An expert in expanding time
just as mirrors do small spaces.
And so appeared deception.
Garbed in paradise:
Bass waters, guitarist streams
above the vault with distance’s blue
local costume uncrumpled,
hamlets townships resorts for warblings
high on suspension’s peaks
below copses orchards serpentine fruits
pipes that mesmerised poisonous apples
lasting cicadas throughout the four
maybe more warm seasons – I don’t know
when I arrived it was cold –
equilibrist dewdrops on tiny leaves
the poppies figures from a Cossack dance
reverie indulging itself sucking
fizzy nightingales one after the other through its straw
shame with a bright-red fig-leaf
slit high on the side dancing
with a homesick emigrant word
as for obedience
sewn at the same seamstress’ as deception
this too was garbed in paradise.
The first beauty contest.
Eternity was voted Miss Cosmos.
She wasn’t present.
And again appeared yesterday.
So as not to be lost like the previous one
it was accompanied a little further on
by photographs.
Duration fell breathless.
They thought it was asleep.
They slapped it threw buckets of kisses over it.
Nothing.
Just endless night.
And the first biped sobbing was heard.
The apple had bitten it.
Where was the first aid for dreams.
Hadn’t they been given priority?
Wrong. Every grandiose clay adventure
fashions its stretcher-bearers in the beginning.
Tomorrow appeared hurry-scurry.
But now it was far too late.
Inside, things have to remain as they are.
Minor changes to the façade is all I’ll allow.
In the beginning appeared yesterday. In no time,
as soon as the visionary sense
on first seeing the day constructed cried
heavens, you’re so short. You won’t do
not even for one person’s loneliness.
The clay was alarmed. What was wrong?
In the plans the day seemed endless.
I saw loaded with bricks and earth
a suspicious orange truck.
The sunset’s dirty work?
The constructor nowhere to be seen.
The decorator pleasure was urgently called in.
An expert in expanding time
just as mirrors do small spaces.
And so appeared deception.
Garbed in paradise:
Bass waters, guitarist streams
above the vault with distance’s blue
local costume uncrumpled,
hamlets townships resorts for warblings
high on suspension’s peaks
below copses orchards serpentine fruits
pipes that mesmerised poisonous apples
lasting cicadas throughout the four
maybe more warm seasons – I don’t know
when I arrived it was cold –
equilibrist dewdrops on tiny leaves
the poppies figures from a Cossack dance
reverie indulging itself sucking
fizzy nightingales one after the other through its straw
shame with a bright-red fig-leaf
slit high on the side dancing
with a homesick emigrant word
as for obedience
sewn at the same seamstress’ as deception
this too was garbed in paradise.
The first beauty contest.
Eternity was voted Miss Cosmos.
She wasn’t present.
And again appeared yesterday.
So as not to be lost like the previous one
it was accompanied a little further on
by photographs.
Duration fell breathless.
They thought it was asleep.
They slapped it threw buckets of kisses over it.
Nothing.
Just endless night.
And the first biped sobbing was heard.
The apple had bitten it.
Where was the first aid for dreams.
Hadn’t they been given priority?
Wrong. Every grandiose clay adventure
fashions its stretcher-bearers in the beginning.
Tomorrow appeared hurry-scurry.
But now it was far too late.
translation by: David Connoly
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