i. Athens, August

Even the days of the week have fled for the islands.
In the broken shadow of ruins, tourists huddle.
The citizens have vanished, melted away
In August’s neutron bomb, its blinding silence.
A remnant of the faithful at the bus stop
Awaits the coming of the four-nineteen.
The pigeons mill through empty squares, at a loss.
No one heeds the prophecy of cicadas.

In dusty parks beneath the tattered palms,
Bareheaded statues cannot shade their eyes;
Stray dogs lap water from a leaking spigot.
As the sun reaches the height of absurdity,
A tree lets drop a single yellow leaf
To the pavement like a used bus ticket.


ii. Mornings, I Walk Past the First Cemetery of Athens

Like a widow, every day the grey Dawn comes
To the Proto Nekrotapheío, and sweeps the crumbs
Of Night from tombstones, and the marble busts.

The stonecutter in his workshop contemplates,
Chisel in hand, the blank face of clean slates.
The waitress at the café mops and dusts.

A priest sits at his newspaper and tarries
Over the headlines and obituaries.

Soon, the mourners gather there to drain
The thick black liquid to the bitter grain.
At the Office of Endings, a hunched man taps his thumbs.

Four diggers play a hand of cards to kill
A little time; two withered florists fill
The old foam wreaths with new chrysanthemums.


iii. Bouzouki
After five years here, I understand
Most of the sung words, recognize the tune,
But there’s an element I’ll never get,

That isn’t born in me. The way they play—
One manages to hold his cigarette
Between two fingers on his strumming hand,

Takes drags between his solos—and then soon
How something changes: a woman starts to sway
Around an absent center—ancient wrongs

Cherished. The cigarette gives up its ghost.
The music drives now. Someone makes a toast
As suddenly the melody arrives


At minor,
                   Asia Minor,
                                            in whose songs

The hands of lovers always rhyme with knives.


iv. The City
     after C. P. Cavafy

You said, “I’ll go to another land, I’ll go to another sea.
I’ll find another city. One that is better than this.
Here my every effort is sentenced to fruitlessness,
And here my heart’s entombed, as if it were a cadaver.
How long will my mind loiter in this wasteland? For wherever
I turn my eyes here, whatever I look upon,
I see the black wreckage of my life, all the gone
Years I frittered away, destroyed, wasted utterly.”

But you will find no other lands, no other seas discover.
This city will pursue you. The same streets, you will follow.
You will grow old among the neighborhoods that you know now.
Among the same houses, you will turn grey. Forever
You are coming to this city. Do not expect another.
For you there is no ship. There is no road for you.
For as you’ve wrecked your life in this small corner, so too
You have wrecked your life the whole world over.