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. 

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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.