I went through

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly 

                                                         T.S. Eliot

I walk and it gets dark.

I make up my mind and it gets dark.

No, I am not sad.

I have been curious and studious.

I know of everything. A bit of everything.

The names of flowers when they shrivel,

when the words become green and when we become cold.

How easy the feelings’ lock turns

with any of oblivion’s keys.

No, I am not sad.

I went through rainy days,

I joined in behind that

liquid barbwire

patiently and unnoticed,

like the trees’ pain

when their last leaf departs

and like the fear of thοse who are brave.

No, I am not sad.

I went through gardens, stood next to fountains

and saw many statuettes that were laughing

at invisible motives of joy.

And little cupid-likes, braggers.

Their outstretched bows

appeared like half moons at my nights and I begun musing.

I had many and beautiful dreams

and had dreams of being forgotten.

No, I am not sad.

I walked a lot through feelings,

mine and others,

and there was always enough space left between them

for the wide time to pass through.

I went through post offices again and went through again.

I wrote letters again and wrote again

and prayed in vain to the god of the answer.

I received brief cards:

A heartfelt goodbye from Patras

and some greetings

from the leaning Tower of Pisa.

No, I am not sad that the day is leaning.

I’ve talked a lot. To people,

to lampposts, to photographs.

And to chains a lot.

I learned how to read palms

and to lose palms.

No, I am not sad.

I travelled for sure.

I went a bit to here, and a bit to there…

Everywhere, the world was ready to age.

I lost a bit from here, and I lost a bit from there.

I lost when being cautious

and when being careless.

I went to the sea as well.

I was due something wide. Let’s say I received it.

I was afraid of loneliness

and imagined people.

I saw them falling

from the hand of a quiet dust particle

that run through a sun ray

and others from the sound of a slight bell.

And I was rung through the chimes

of an orthodox barrenness.

No, I am not sad.

I touched fire and got slightly burned.

And I did not even miss the moons’ know-how.

Their cast over the seas and the eyes,

dark, it ground me.

No, I am not sad.

As much as I could, I resisted this river

when it had a lot of water, not to drag me,

and as much as possible I imagined water

in dry riverbeds

and drifted away.

No, I am not sad.

It’s getting dark at the right time. 

---------------------------------------------

Personal notes: 

This poem was published as part of the collection 'The little of the world' (1971).

It is written in the first person, in a 'confessional' mode. One can argue that Dimoula is voicing here a retrospect of her life, or aspects of her life as they approach their end. The title ('I went through') supports this view. 

In each stanza, Dimoula presents what she has experienced and learned in life  - what she 'went through'. Many of her observations relate to human feelings and ideas of affection and loneliness. These experiences are bound by the poem's central theme - loss. 

The first stanza underscores this theme. The end of the day approaches ('it gets dark'). The night here is a metaphor for the end of life or aspects of life and their loss. The stanza concludes with the phrase 'No, I am not sad'.  The poet repeats this phrase at the end of all the poem's stanzas. It is the poem's most striking feature. At first, this repetition may seem like an act of disbelief - that the poet is actually sad, and repeats this phrase to evade reality (in this case, the repetition acts as a double negative). This is a natural, human reaction to loss. However, a closer read reveals that the poet is approaching the end of things from a more mature perspective and that she has in fact reconciled with the idea, and is not sad about it. This is supported by the last line, where the poet admits that the night has arrived at the right time. 

This reconciliation with, and acceptance of the inevitable end of things - a mature, yet difficult achievement - is also the theme of a famous poem by Constantinos Cavafy, 'The god forsakes Antony'. It was written in 1911:

When suddenly, at midnight, you hear 
an invisible procession going by 
with exquisite music, voices, 
don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now, 
work gone wrong, your plans 
all proving deceptive—don’t mourn them uselessly. 
As one long prepared, and graced with courage, 
say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving. 
Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say 
it was a dream, your ears deceived you: 
don’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these. 
As one long prepared, and graced with courage, 
as is right for you who were given this kind of city, 
go firmly to the window 
and listen with deep emotion, but not 
with the whining, the pleas of a coward; 
listen—your final delectation—to the voices, 
to the exquisite music of that strange procession, 
and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing. 

Exercices for losing the extra kilos in short time period

Lie down. On something hard.
At first, the comforts' spinal bones may hurt
but slowly slowly they will straighten
the inactivity's back.

Retract now your bad habits
in a rigid line.
Bring your hands gently to your chest
like temporary wings of temporary angels.
Do not change position.
The supine oars deftly.

Do not be afraid. Fear fattens
it contains hunger.
Do not chew sensations. They have many calories.
They cause the deprivations' fat.

Your eyes closed please, completely
no misinterpretable crevices
no sight lollipops.
They radiate ultraviolet nostalgia.

Exhale deeply, stay still
do not breathe do not breathe
it runs the risk to show
only half of the boatman in the x-ray.

Let go now on the sleep's slide.

I will play you a tape, relax,
of your mother's lullaby
there there my baby
willing or not will say.

Weigh yourselves. Stand still please
your body contains an inlaid scale.


---------------------------------------------

Personal notes: 

This poem was published as part of the collection 'Greenhouse grass' (2005).
Its title is long and unusual for a Dimoula poem, but it is successful in setting the tone and the overall narrative of the poem. 

There are perhaps several ways to interpret this poem. I understand it best by accepting the premise that the poet is addressing herself, and that the exercise regime central to the poem's narrative relates to eliminating the 'weight' of mortality as carried by someone who is approaching old age. 

Here are some observations that support this interpretation.

In the first stanza, the poet suggests that the person performing the exercises has been neglecting her physical (and perhaps mental) health, living a life of comforts and indolence. These attitudes to life become more tempting as one gets older, and Dimoula is approaching old age. 

In the second stanza, the poet describes a set of hands as 'temporary wings of temporary angels'. This is a direct reference to mortality. She also insists that one remains in the supine position, which is a common burial position. [In the fourth stanza, she insists also that the eyes remain completely shut, and then, later on, asks her subject to let go and 'sleep', which also alludes to dying]

In the third and fourth stanzas, the poet reveals the sources of one's 'extra kilos'. These include 'fear', 'nostalgia', and 'deprivation', which tend to exacerbate as one gets older. At old age, one fears dying, one longs for the past, the sensations of a younger age, and everything that one has been deprived of in life. 

The fifth stanza provides the stronger clue for this interpretation. Dimoula switches narratives and instead of addressing a person performing fitness exercises, she addresses someone lying on a medical bed about to take an x-ray. It is typical of Dimoula to switch into such contrasting narratives  - from a regime (and a lying position) that is mostly associated with fitness and health to a regime that is associated with illness and death. 

The seventh stanza reiterates themes of nostalgia and makes a direct connection between the beginning and the end of one's life. A small baby falls asleep to her mother's lullaby, while an old person is about to fall asleep forever. 

The poem's last stanza is Dimoula's answer to the 'weight' of her mortality. She acknowledges that it is part of herself, something that no exercise may be able to eliminate, but also something that depends on her own perception and coping mechanisms. 

The selective eternity

'Trust me I will love you forever'
death reiterates every minute
to eternity

and groaning
out of miserable certainty

'oh why aren't you a liar'

eternity curses death.

Untitled

It's raining with absolute sincerity.
Therefore the sky is not a rumour
it exists
and so much so that the soil is not
the only solution
as every indolent dead man claims.


---------------------------------------------

Personal notes: 

This poem was published as part of the collection 'We moved next door' (2007). 
Although brief, it bears complex ideas about mortality, spirituality, and human perceptions. 

The poem's first image involves a natural phenomenon, 'rain', which is often introduced by artists (literally or figuratively) to allude to pessimistic or dark views and gloomy circumstances. The poem's other images (a sky, the soil we use to bury the dead) may suggest that Dimoula is using 'rain' to refer to our negative perceptions about spirituality and our own mortality. 

However, Dimoula pairs this phenomenon with the abstract concept of 'sincerity'. What does it mean to rain 'with absolute sincerity'? Sincerity can have a negative and positive effect. It can hurt you, but it can also set you free. The poet perhaps suggests that this is the same with any feelings or perceptions provoked by 'rain'. 

The poet continues to verify the existence of a 'sky', a phenomenon that alludes to positive feelings about our mortality. For Christians, heaven is somewhere in the sky, a symbol of hope. It is interesting that what verifies such a positive concept ('sky') is the 'sincere' existence of a perceivably negative concept ('rain'). 

The poem's next image involves the soil, which here symbolises death or any other feelings and perceptions about the end of things. The poet calls these feelings and perceptions 'indolent'. They are indolent because they take the end for granted, and do not contemplate other 'solutions'. Dimoula has offered the 'sky' as a solution to this 'soil'. She is suggesting that what we may perceive to be a dead end, can be in fact an endless road. 

Burglars in thought

She explains sobbing
that burglars invaded her house
took her jewelry and raped
senile values.

Why is she not happy about it?

I haven't had a burglar
set foot in my house for years
not even for coffee.
I deliberately leave the pot unlocked.

When returning home every time I pray
to find the door's eyeteeth broken

the lights to tremble as if they banged
on the head of a tall earthquake

to find the hoards
from the mirror's mummy kingdoms stolen

as if someone had shaved in the bathroom
and a beard has grown on my hairless touch
their denial tied up laying on the floor 

and from the kitchen the slowly approaching steam of
a warm footstep with lots of cinnamon on top.

Solitaire

Life
was born in its past
it spends there most of its time
and only comes here
to fulfil the present

- we were being tactful when we named it life.
We would have named it brevity
but such a swift name
is an insult
to creation

its arrival is rousing
it travels with a bunch of optimistic
artistic views

that the dreamy future
is not far from the present

as a fresh phrase
from a dream's cry out

as your lips from the parting's
lips.

But the arrival's journey is long
when are we reaching the parting's lips?
life asks every now and then
anxious
will the unknown wait for it
at the station?

otherwise
it doesn't know where to go on its own.

And there, on the way
to this long anxiety
life
first learns to dream.


---------------------------------------------

Personal notes: 

This poem was published as part of the collection 'The finder's fee' (2010). 
Its themes involve life, its brevity, and hope. 

The first stanza may suggest an obsession or preoccupation with the past as being a detriment to life in the present. It may also suggest the importance of the past in shaping the present. The last line in this stanza suggests that what we call 'life' or 'living' happens in very brief instances - life in the present is brief. In contrast, as suggested by the third line, living in the past (literally and figuratively) is a much longer affair. 

The second stanza directly addresses life's brevity. The poet is in a playful mood, a bit sarcastic but at the same time, surprisingly, respectful (I realise these may sound contradictory). 

Dimoula acknowledges, with a hint of sarcasm, that life is brief, but also recognises that life is part of a bigger concept which demands respect, what she calls 'creation'.

In the rest of the poem she addresses the necessity of hope in our lives. We live in hope that the future will fulfil our dreams, knowing that what actually will happen is unknown. Her argument is not profound, but is universal and true. Despite, or because of this unknown and the inevitable 'parting' with life and the people we care about, humans dream and hope.

In sorrow you enlarged me

Should I call you by your first name as well
the same way faith calls you its Lord?

You found clay for free half price for the dead end
and you created created humans non-stop.
And now how will the encounter accomodate us all.
For us to enter others need to exit
the small possibilities, in out
become all the rage.

Granted you have given us a vast loneliness
open space, let us meet there.

It works. There is some traffic
but is mostly visited
by some hungry ghosts
who bury their faces in food
deboning our fattened anticipation
cumbered nullified
in the way every satiety nullifies.
The need seizes the best ones
locks itself for hours inside with them hooh ha
it bullies them gives them pocket money
fulfills them shatters them
unbeknown though, no mouthful left.

The other noises you hear are not a turnout
but just noise itself prancing around that everyone has left
you are hearing the walking stick holding tense,
crawling as far to pretense, or
the memory stumbling on similarities
gets startled shouts thieves thieves  - what fool
covets to rob an empty hoard.

You created the complicated encounter very narrow.
For some to enter we must exit ourselves.
But even those who have broken in, stepping
overstepping over our persecution, how much
of an encounter do you think they are left to feel.
By the time they cross the intricate attraction,
and for their sight to adjust
to the low foreign light of approach
and sit down, there holding gently the hand
of completeness
the unfulfilled invades with its gang and
men get out the seats are taken.

Take caution

When you are setting up the table

before you sit down

check thoroughly

your opposite chair 

if it is strong perhaps it creaks

perhaps the notches became loose

perhaps the joints have worn out

if a worm

undermines the frame

because the person who doesn't sit there

gets heavier by the day.

---------------------------------------------

Personal notes: 

This poem was published as part of the collection 'We moved next door' (2007). 
Its themes, like in many of Kiki Dimoula's poems, involve memory, personal loss/absence and the experience of being alone. This experience can be painful, but endurable.  

The poet may be addressing herself, or giving advice to her audience. 

The vacant chair opposite to the poet is a metaphor for the memory or mental presence of an intimate other. Perhaps this person used to sit there with her/us (an actual loss), or perhaps this person was never there (a desired/imagined loss). Either way, the poet/us are alone at the table. 
Every day the preservation of this memory/mental presence (a ritual) becomes harder, though the reasons for this are not clear. Is it because with age the poet's/our mental abilities are becoming weaker (and therefore the memory becomes heavier to hold), or is it because she is/we are increasingly hurting by this person's absence? The poet may be warning us that the person's absence will become more and more painful, or maybe she is being sarcastic about her own fixation with this ritual. 

There is a hint of optimism as well. Is the ritual an act of holding on to a painful loss/desire, or is it a way to strengthen the resistance to this pain and make it endurable? 

In Greek, Dimoula refers to the person as a 'he' (most probably referring to her deceased husband).  However, I did not specify the gender of the person in this translation because the poem can easily take a more universal context. 

Building

Truly how well did it go
that big business for feelings
you launched.

I hear it knelt you down.
At least are you clear of all the liabilities?
Have you helped oblivion to build?
It had been wanting for years
its own family
its own home
away
away from the memory
of those who loved them both.

Un-expectations

My Lord what doesn't await us still.

I am sitting here and sitting.
It's raining without raining
as when a shadow
returns a body to us.

I am sitting here and sitting.
Myself here, my heart opposite
and further away
my weary relationship with it.
So we seem many
each time emptiness counts our heads.

The empty room is blowing.
I hold tight onto the way I have
of being swept away.

I have no news of you.
Your photograph stationary.
You stare as if approaching
you smile like no.
Dried flowers at the side
repeat to you ceaselessly
their un-holdable name semprevives
semprevives - everlasting, everlasting
so you don't forget what you are not.

Time asks me
exactly where by I want it to pass
exactly how I spell my name
shiver or shrivel.
Such amusements.
No end knows any spelling.

I have no news of you.
Your photograph stationary.
As if it's raining without raining.

As shadow returns to me the body.
And as we will meet again one day
up there.
At some overgrown sparseness
with shady un-expectations
and evergreen un-collisions.
The interpretation of the ferocious
silence that we will experience
- an advanced form of the intense
intoxication that an encounter causes
down here - will be performed by a void.
And we will be overtaken then
by a passionate un-recognition
- an advanced form of the embrace
that the encounter employs down here.
Yes we will meet. Un-breathily, secretively
from the attraction. In a downpour
of a heavy lack of gravity. At some
excursion perhaps of the infinite to ad infinitum;
at the ceremony for awarding losses to the known,
for its great contribution to the un-known;
invited to a destination's starlight,
to cessations' frolics for dissolving
causes and of farewell skies'
former great meanings.
Except that this companionship of distances
will be a bit sulky, un-cheerful
even if nothingness finds cheer from nothing.
Perhaps because the soul of the company will be absent.
                                                                         The flesh.
I shout to the ash 
to disarm me.
I call upon the ash 
by its code name: Everything. 

Ι assume you meet up often
yourself and the death of that dream.
My last-born dream.

Of all I had the most prudent.
Un-turbid,  gentle, understanding.
And sure not very dreamy,
though neither cheaply subdued,
not every street's white sheets.
A very thrifty dream,
in intensity and errors.
Of the dreams I raised
the one most sympathetic to me: not to
grow older alone.

I assume you meet up often
yourself and its death.
Give it my regards, tell it to come
along when we meet
there, at the losses' awards ceremony.

Love me as long as you don't live.
Yes yes the impossible is enough for me.
I was loved by it another time as well.
Love me as long as you don't live.
Because I have no news from you.
And heaven forbid that the absurd should show
no signs of life.


---------------------------------------------

Personal notes: 

This poem was published as part of the collection 'Farewell never' (1988). 
The poem is longer than most of Kiki Dimoula's poems. It is the first poem in the collection published after her husband's loss. It is hard not to read this poem as a direct reference to this loss and the anguish of outliving a life partner. However, the poem alludes to broader themes about relations between individuals, human mortality, and the perceived afterlife.  

The poem includes repetitions of words and sentences (a technique found also in a few other poems by Dimoula), perhaps to emphasise the recurrence and persistence of the feelings associated with the state she found herself in - having to live the rest of her life alone, without her partner. These repetitions make her sound trapped and tired.

She maintains an existential mood, throughout the poem. She expresses anger, bitterness, mockery, and even weariness about her partner's mortality (and perhaps her own mortality as well). She ridicules any suggestion that there is an after life. For the poet, such a premise is absurd and empty of any significance or meaning. 

The poem's title originates from a word that is used mostly as an adjective (the 'unexpected'). However, the poet uses it here as a noun (in plural tense). She draws attention to this strange word by choosing to 'elevate' it to a more 'solid' part of speech and by doing so, allowing it to have a plural tense. This provokes some initial questions: What was she expecting(or looking forward to) and why is she not expecting it anymore?

The poem provides possible answers to these questions. She was expecting not to grow old alone, but now she will have to. She is not expecting to meet her partner again, in any form of afterlife. 

Dimoula introduces the poem by inverting a popular Greek saying: 'My Lord, what awaits us still'. In its popular use, this saying is used to express grief rather than joy (for anticipating bad things rather than good things in one's life, especially after something unpleasant has happened). The saying suggests also that things to come (in one's life) are at the Lord's mercy. Dimoula uses this saying to emphasise the poem's focal point: the loss of a beloved person. She writes: 'My Lord, what doesn't await us still', suggesting that she is experiencing a state where there are not a lot of things to expect/look forward to, not even in the afterlife. It's interesting that despite the use of a contraction the saying still reads as a lament - perhaps drawing attention to the inevitability of the poet's situation and the desperation inherited in it. 

Dimoula uses a similar technique in the last verse. She adds a contraction to a common declaration of love and devotion (from 'Love me as long as you live' to 'Love me as long as you don't live'). The absurdity of this statement accentuates the poet's feelings and desperation. She is now left with the absurd, and she is willing to accept it as her new reality, in the same way, she accepted her old reality - being loved. By this, she suggests that the existence of love, and possibly human relationships or even life in general, might be as absurd as its/their loss. 

The periphrastic stone

Speak.

Say something, anything. 

Just don't stand there like a solid absence. 

Choose even one word 

that binds you tighter

to indefiniteness. 

Say:

"unfairly", 

"tree", 

"bare". 

Say:

"we will see", 

"imponderable", 

"weight". 

There are so many words that dream of

a short, unbound, life with your voice. 

Speak. 

We have so much sea ahead of us. 

Where we finish

the sea begins. 

Say something. 

Say "wave", which does not stand still. 

Say "boat", which sinks

if you overload it with prepositions. 

Say "moment"

that screams help it is drowning, 

don't save it, 

say

"I did not hear". 

Speak.

The words have feuds between them, 

they have rivalries: 

if one of them captures you, 

another sets you free. 

Pick a word from the night

by luck. 

A whole night by luck. 

Don't say "whole", 

say "diminutive", 

which lets you escape. 

Diminutive

sensation, 

sorrow

whole

mine.

The whole night.  

Speak. 

Say "star", which fades. 

Silence does not diminish with just one word. 

Say "stone", 

which is an unbreakable word. 

Like that, so far from it, 

so I can put a title

to this coastal walk. 

---------------------------------------------

Personal notes: 

This poem was published as part of the collection 'The little of the world' (1971). 
It is perhaps Dimoula's most popular poem. 

The poem is playful in style but melancholic in its content. The last line establishes its context: it involves the poet taking a long coastal walk in the verbal absence of a companion. 

It is possible that this companion is physically absent as well (that the poet is in fact alone), though such a possibility does not change the poem's meaning. Whether physically there or not, the companion's silence equals to an absence. There is also the possibility that the poet is addressing herself.

The poet personifies most of the words she voices. In a few occasions, this personification can only be described as 'literal' (the word 'boat' is sinking, the word 'stone' is unbreakable, the word 'wave' does not stand still). In other occasions this personification is figurative ( the word 'moment' is drowning, words dream or have feuds between them). 

The rivalling decay

Move aside time so I can feel.

I got invited to a wedding somewhere in your neighborhood
and, as required,  I sprinkled your street
with a few dried steps.

Your street has turned into a sidewalk.
There's bar tables right outside
your house. If you believe,
all that space it took
for a hesitation
to cross and come here starving,
is now being thrashed by a rude
sacrilegious rivalling food smell.

I raise the old habit up the window.
The crevice stands like a wheelie clarinet
in front of the slightly open
and next to it the wall like a cyclops
glares at me with an ugly box.
So you installed air conditioning.
Meaning you drilled beyond doubt
the heat I met you in.
Such modernisms and such transformations.

Βut the blow was waiting for me elsewhere.
Τhere, at how slothfully the memory was stirred
about the prosecutions. How best to word this
just for formality's sake, out of an obligation
the reductions sighed a couple of times.

It seems one gets tired of growing older.
The confrontation arrives
and collapses exhausted, a grown man.

Memory is derived from the word body
exhausted as well, gone are the affliction's past nimblenesses  -
them derived from the word vigor.
The reflexes are slow.
That's why while driving through the nearby pains - manual -
you see it enter naturally
into the opposite lane
and bam hit its head on the wheel.

That's where your eyes will see torture
and not in the small pains the heat experienced
when you were taking it down.

Move aside time.

Apropos

When the last shooting TV host
announces as he falls my dear viewers
this has been today's last update
thank you for joining me
and the stars' channel is laid
with biting silent snow I am startled
I wonder what has happened where has he fallen
the person who kept announcing me softly
until the dawn
of his goodnight's starry screen.

---------------------------------------------

Personal notes:

This poem was published as part of the collection 'Departures' sound' (2001). 

Like many of Kiki Dimoula's poems, it relates to loss and its aftermaths. The intimacy of the poet's words, the playful use of imagery, the direct reference to herself ('I say') and to a male object suggest that this is a very personal poem, perhaps addressed to her deceased husband. 

The poet paints two vivid images: one of a night sky full of stars, and one of a TV screen at the end of a day's broadcast. 

In the past, Greek TV stations did not broadcast on a 24/hour basis. They employed hosts/announcers to appear on screen at the beginning and end of each day's broadcast to welcome or say goodnight to viewers (usually right after midnight). These TV hosts/announcers functioned also as live TV guides at other times - they made several announcements during the day - hence the reference in the poem about the 'last update' of the day. 

At the beginning of the poem, Dimoula draws a parallel between the fall of a shooting star in the sky and the 'exit' of the TV host through his/her last announcement. She then draws another parallel between the night sky and the TV screen's analogue noise/static (now that the day's broadcast has finished). She likens this 'noise' to snow, which is painfully cold and silent (notice the oxymoron between 'noise' and 'silent'). This perhaps reflects how the poet is feeling at the day's end. 

The poet continues on to draw another parallel between the TV host/announcer and the person who used to share the nights with her. She is surprised that, like the TV host, that person is not there anymore to make his own 'announcements', until dawn. The order of the words in the Greek original suggests that these softly spoken announcements affirmed the poet's presence (perhaps it was just whisperings of her name).

The poet's surprise at finding herself without her intimate other suggests that this is a recent loss.