Jungle

It's morning and all of the world

is staged

at the ideal distance of a shootout. 

The guns have been selected, 

the same ones always, 

your needs, my needs. 

The person responsible for counting one, two, three, shoot

was late, 

and until his arrival

we sat on the same goodmorning 

and gazed at nature. 

The countryside was going through puberty 

and the green was being lewd. 

The pastoral June dragged

screams of a trophied atrocity. 

Gripping and swinging

from a branch of trees and sensations

to a branch of trees and sensations, 

a short film's Tarzan

chased invisible beasts 

in the small jungle of a story. 

The forest was promising birds

and snakes. 

A venomous abundance of opposites. 

The daylight fell sharp on 

everything that wasn't daylight, 

and the amatory brightness

kissed passionately everything that wasn't love, 

even your own frown. 

There was no one at the small church

other than its charged name, the Liberator. 

One defiant Jesus 

was counting his life with a miser's passion:

nails and thorns.  

No wonder he hasn't heard

the shootings. 

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

Personal notes: 

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

In this poem, Dimoula describes the inherent contradictions and tension in a married couple's life. 

The first stanza describes a couple's relationship as a battle of needs. Dimoula suggests tensions arise from desiring to fulfil one's needs when being with another person. The stanza sets the stage for an imminent 'shootout' between a couple. The 'shootout' may refer to an argument, or physical tension, perhaps even during lovemaking. Dimoula suggests these tensions are common in marriage ("the same ones always").

The rest of the poem prolongs (or delays) the execution of this 'shootout', which doesn't occur until the poem's last line, by elaborating on the contradictions in the thoughts and feelings of a married couple.  

Dimoula suggests marriage is like an imaginary 'jungle', filled with liberating ("birds") but also stifling ("snakes") sensations and thoughts. The second and third stanza describe moments of passion that entice these contradictions. 

Passion and feelings take over rational thoughts (another contradiction) in the third stanza, as one lover continues to embrace the other, despite obvious disengagement and dissatisfaction ("frown"). 

The last stanza suggests religion encourages (or even misleads) people to commit to marriage, without acknowledging its tensions and complexities. Dimoula suggests here that there is a contradiction between the church's liberating promise and the strains of marriage. 

Again I forgive you

I have been accused
by renewal and by variety
that I traffic in big stale
amounts of repetition
that boredom becomes addicted to.

Ι protest, although that causes
new victims of addiction since
all protests around the world
traffic in their stale repetition.

Indeed only from the repetition's shop
open day and night
can illusion buy immortality wares.

How much new
how much astonishingly diverse
is possible to flow in the unchangeable
veins of this world

and how can you deprive it of dying
repeatedly again and again again
depriving then its renewal
from death.

Everything new is a drizzle
leaking from surprise's roof
and we collect it in a repetition's
plastic basin.

In pursuit, you tell me, in pursuit
you will find the new.

Oh, but pursuit
is only sameness in disguise.
Pursuit of something new again
                                     again I forgive you
                                     again I dreamed of you
                                     tomorrow again tomorrow
                                     I will tell you again
                                     again you will ask for
                                     a logical explanation
                                     again I will answer that
                                     what is required is not for you to understand
                                     but to endure.


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

Personal notes: 

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

The poem's core theme is the inevitable dominance of an 'unchangeable' world over the illusion of renewal in one's life. Dimoula seems to suggest that we cannot create something new over and over again because ultimately our world (and perhaps our mortality) offers us limited options. Therefore, repetition is an intrinsic part of our lives, because it is natural.

The poem begins with an accusation, though it is not clear who is actually accusing the poet of being repetitious, or what this repetition involves. 

There are a few possible interpretations.

The accusation may be originating from someone who is close to the poet and who wishes that their relationship is rejuvenated by breaking its routine and pursuing new experiences. But it is impossible for the poet to do that. 

The last stanza of the poem, where Dimoula changes the grammatical person and addresses someone directly, supports this interpretation. In those last few lines, the poem becomes personal and more intimate. The poet asks from this person to endure this repetition rather than understand it, suggesting that it is impossible for her to change. 

Another possible interpretation, although perhaps a far-fetched one, is that this poem is actually an answer to some critics of Dimoula's work. Dimoula is 'accused' by some critics as being repetitive in the subjects and focus of her poems. Here, she wonders how anyone can keep pursuing and reinventing new things when this world is so 'unchangeable'. To keep creating new things would be an illusion, just like immortality is an illusion.  

I left you a message

Hello hello can you hear me? Hello

I am calling from far away. I can't hear

what, the distance has run out of battery?

You are speaking from a mobile space?

Press zero again? And again?

Can you hear me now?

Yes can I please speak to my mother?

What number have I dialed? The sky

this is the number they gave me. She is not there?

Can I please scream a message for her?

Tell her there is a great need

I saw in my sleep that she had died and I,

a little child, wet myself wailingly 

the fear soaked high up there

and it still hasn't dried off. 

She should come and change it. 

If she can't, can you tell her as well 

that it has matured that scare of hers 

of the old man who will devour me

if I don't finish eating my food. 

It has matured I have become senescence's meal. 

Not at a dream's tavern. 

At some local soup kitchen run

by the mirror. 

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

Personal notes: 

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

In this poem, Dimoula muses about old age and the fear of dying. It is one of a small number of poems she wrote that refer to motherhood and mothers, and of her own mother. 

The poem begins in a very playful almost comical mood. It parodies a long distance phone call, one in which the caller and the receiver cannot establish clear communication. Dimoula is speaking in first person, pretending to make the call herself. It is soon revealed that she is trying to communicate with her deceased mother. 

Once the poet addresses her mother, her tone changes and becomes more abrupt and urgent, and the poem switches to its real theme: the fear of dying in old age. 

The next to last stanza refers to a popular scare story that (Greek) mothers told their children to force them finish their meals. This story involves an old man who walks in neighbourhoods, dressed in black and holding a black nylon bag, wanting to kidnap children who don't finish eating their meal. Dimoula uses this story to express her own fear of old age, making a parallel between this old man and death, and suggests that now that she is old she fears that death will seek to 'devour' her before she is finished living her life. 

Repair loans

An abandoned derelict believable chapel.

As if built by disrepair itself. 

The dome's tiles 

a perforated shawl thrown 

over the hoary hump of its uplift. 

Τhe small windows hang

somewhat crookedly on the wall

like icons moved from faith's straightness
by an earthquake.  

Stained glass composed of

cracked drops from a battered rain.

Would sanctity still live inside it,

fed only from extinguished candles?

The amphibian door is locked

- it can live inside immersed in the darkness 

while swimming also in the light outside. 

On it, a small step

rests its back

begging for a little repair. It is broken. 

And nature, which makes up to everything

that adores anything in its prime

and can't deny any favours to decay

repairs the step's crack

filling it colourfully

with nettles thistles mallows

bay leaves and prickly poppies. 

And suddenly it becomes spring-like

cheerful picturesque optimistic, the terror

of our abandonment's disrepair. 

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

Personal notes: 

This poem was published as part of the collection 'Greenhouse grass' (2005).

In this poem, Mrs Dimoula embraces the dual nature of life - of decay and prime, pessimism and optimism, light and darkness. 

She describes a real or imaginary visit to a derelict chapel, 'revisiting' a common theme in her poems - abandonment. This abandonment may refer to someone being abandoned by others (perhaps by a loved one), to someone being abandoned by 'youth' (and therefore getting old and closer to death), or someone abandoning her religious faith. 

For Dimoula, this abandonment is an unpleasant situation, a 'terror'. However, this terror is never absolute and is accompanied by small comforting components. 

This duality is present in many of the poem's images: the weeds in the fifth stanza (the weeds that nature grows to 'heal' a broken step) are a combination of wild weeds that can irritate or have soothing qualities, or that can be visually pleasant or unpleasant; the door in the third stanza is described as 'amphibian' and embraces both light and darkness; in the fourth stanza nature is described as servicing both decay and prime.

Finally, Dimoula ends the poem by giving us an equal shot of optimism and pessimism by describing an image of a small repair (the weeds in the step's crack) against the broad 'terror' of abandonment. 

The nourisher

No, I don't have any further information
about love

only that it is
a flame's gleam
from a votive glass on a star's grave

it remains alive night and day
in storm rain and snow
without oil without a wick

burns on its own
as if love is a miracle

and since our subsistence
dangles from the miracle

we believe blindly in the everlasting
committal flame of love.

Only when you approach with your candle
to take the flame back home

this flame
dies out after a few steps

on its own

without storm rain and snow

in the same way that every miracle dies out
when you detach it from its nourishing idea.


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

Personal notes: 

This poem was published as part of the collection 'The finder's fee' (2010). 

To understand this poem it is important to become aware of a few Greek Orthodox customs. 

It is customary to maintain a glass filled with water and oil, and a wick that floats on the surface of the oil, at every Greek Orthodox grave. The wick is meant to be lit up by the deceased's relatives, who are responsible for keeping the flame alive. This ritual is symbolic - the flame symbolises the continuous presence of the dead in the memories and lives of the ones they left behind. By keeping the flame alive, the relatives honour the memory of the deceased. 

In this poem, Dimoula makes a connection between love and the flame in this votive glass. Love is often described as a 'flame', but it is interesting that the poet has chosen to make an association with a flame that is present at a grave. As in other poems, she makes a connection between love and death. 

She also makes a connection between love and the blind faith associated with religion and miracles. For Dimoula, love is a miracle, and like miracles, it is irrational and otherworldly. For Dimoula the presence of love does not follow the usual rules of nature. Love's flame does not require a wick and oil to remain alive, and water cannot extinguish it. 

The second custom that Dimoula references in this poem relates to a religious ritual performed during Easter. When Greeks go to church on Easter Saturday they take with them small wax candles. At some point during the liturgy, the priest holds out a lit candle that everyone uses to lit their own candles. The candle's flame is meant to symbolise the news of Christ's resurrection (and the message that death is not the end of life). The pilgrims try to maintain the flame alive throughout the rest of the night (a difficult task!) and many take the flame back to their homes.

Dimoula makes a parallel between the difficult task of keeping that flame alive and the difficult task of maintaining one's belief in love. To believe in love is illogical and instinctive, just like love is. This belief is the 'nourishing idea' of love.  And just like religion, people believe in love as an essential part of their lives ('subsistence'), despite its irrationality. 

However, just like religion, love is extinguished when rationalised. 

On the ferry

Small young couple.
Eyes of an expatriate origin.
They must be working somewhere in survival
- submission is famous
for its capability.

On summer holidays.
Their hands are free now to attend to
their neglected caresses.

I admire how skilfully they lay their fingers
on their play's bed
tightly tied
as if they are weaving cheery little baskets
filling them up with desire's wriggle
undoing them and weaving them again from scrap

the young man must be tired now
perhaps from the action's excessive freedom
and as the ferry wiggles cheerfully
he leans and falls asleep
on his left earring

awake as she still is
she stares for a second at his sleeping hand
and slowly, carefully not to awaken it
places it on her shoulder
and on it she leans
sweetly falling asleep herself.

Love is such a useful cushion
suitable
for all of pain's travels in the body
for every age's dreams
for all kinds of sleepiness
essential
for the house
for the musing
for the bus
for the ferry and everything else
that drowns us.

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

Personal notes: 

This poem was published as part of the collection 'We moved next door' (2007). 

The subject of the poem is a young couple of foreign (non-Greek) origin that the poet encountered on a ferry; perhaps one of the numerous ferries that travel between Greek islands. Dimoula observes the couple and carefully weaves an intimate portrait of her two protagonists, making suggestions (or revelations) about their lives and relationship. 

The first stanza establishes that the couple are foreign workers. The poet's choice to reference the couple's eyes and small bodies might mean that the couple is of Asian origin (although this may sound racist, this is not the intention). The poet suggests that her protagonists were probably forced to seek work abroad so that they can survive, perhaps because they experienced bad conditions at their home country. The stanza's last two lines suggest a broader sociopolitical comment - that labour is submission and vice versa. 

The second stanza establishes that her protagonists are on holidays, and that perhaps they don't usually get to spend time with each other. It is unclear whether the couple's neglect for each other was forced by their life conditions or by their own behaviours. 

The next stanzas describe an intimate moment that ends in both protagonists falling asleep. It is interesting that the man 'tires' of the couple's intimacy first, while the woman tries to extend it beyond the man's intentions. This is a typical 'behaviour' in many of Dimoula's poems. 

In the last stanza, Dimoula provides commentary about love, inspired by her encounter with the young couple. Her commentary is written in the language and tone that is often found in medicine descriptions. She makes a parallel between love and essential medical kits for travelling (essentially a parallel between painkillers and love). Her tone develops an unusual combination of playfulness and sarcasm, yet also seriousness and matter-of-fact advice. 

The last line suggests that we fall in love to soothe the pain in our lives. This pain may have different sources in each person. For the couple that Dimoula is describing, it may originate from their hard working conditions, and ultimately their mortality. They have fallen in love to evade their life's hard conditions, and ultimately to evade death. 

The rare gift

New theories.
You should not leave children to cry.
Take them in your arms immediately. Otherwise
the feeling of abandonment undergoes
premature growth
their child trauma comes of age abnormally
grows teeth hair nails crooked knives.

For grown ups, the old people as we say
- what's not spring is old these days -
you should follow the ancient principles.
Never embrace them. Strengthen their ellipsis
let them burst out crying
until they are out of breath.
Let the grown ups cry. No embrace.
Just fill their feeding bottle
with non-sweet promise - deprivations
should not get fat - that their mother's embrace
will come once and for good
to send them gauntly to sleep.
Place that device that
records the baby's noises next to them
so that you can listen remotely
whether their breath is rhythmically lonely.
Never be fooled into embracing them.

They can wrap fiercely
around the rare neck of this gift,
they will choke you.

Nothing. When you are asked for an embrace
tell them you will not surrender baby, you will not surrender.



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


Personal notes: 

This poem was published as part of the collection 'Oblivion's adolescence' (1994).
The poem's main theme is the inherent loneliness of adulthood, which Dimoula suggests is a social construct. 

Dimoula acknowledges that we treat children and adults differently when it comes to abandonment. We find it difficult to abandon children when they express pain and suffering, yet we find it normal to leave adults to suffer their own pain. This is particularly true to how we treat the aged. 

Dimoula seems to suggest that there is no real difference between how children long for attention and care, and how adults long for other people's embrace. Both longings are just as natural, intense, and desperate. Adults condition themselves to disguise and subdue this need, by suffering on their own, and by ignoring other people's longing for empathy, comfort and assistance. 

Added value

I read an utterly interesting
scientific verification

that us humans
are the only beings on earth
that cry.

And I felt proud that
only our own introversion carries
such effusive solicitous glands.

I say - an assumption -
if I were a little tree with lemon buds
and my flower thickened into a lemon
and a hot air, thirsty
for something juicy
wrung the branch's throat
and stole the lemon
cut it in half
with the little theft's innocent
pocket knife
squeezed it forcibly
dripping the juices
in the mouth of its burnt
wide open puff
and a tang of stinging droplets
sprung unintentionally
into your distant eye
- a wish can spring
as far out as you want -

perhaps - an assumption -
your lacrimal glands
would welcome it.


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


Personal notes: 

This poem was published as part of the collection 'Greenhouse grass' (2005).

The poem is addressed to an unidentified person who perhaps does not share the poet's sensitivities, vulnerability and compassion - or even passion (love). Dimoula wishes that this person experienced the same intensity of emotions and thoughts that can lead someone to tears.

The poem is full of images that hint to violence and pain  - tears, wringing of a throat, squeezing, acidic droplets, knife, thirst, burning. The poet's choice of inducing tears through the stinging droplets of a lemon is very indicative of the intensity of this poem.The poem's images emphasise the poet's internal ('introversion') struggle with her emotions and thoughts, and her wish that these were acknowledged by the people close to her - perhaps her husband. 

The centrality of pain and emotion in this poem brings to mind Frida Kahlo's work. 

[Untitled]

I acknowledge
it was you, Need, that created the world as a continuum
first with "give to me", then "I don't have".
But not love, not you, Need
love was created by death
out of a wild curiosity
to grasp
the meaning of life.


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

Personal notes: 

This poem was published as part of the collection 'The finder's fee' (2010). 
Dimoula addresses human need, which she personifies (hence the capital N). She acknowledges that humans act mainly driven by their needs and that human relationships are driven by an exchange of needs. The third line suggests that possession and denial/deprival can be important elements of a world driven by need. 

However, the poet does not believe that love is mainly driven by need, although one would expect it to be. Instead, Dimoula believes that love is the creation of mortality. Since love is created by something that demands an end, it is doomed to be finite. This statement, that love is death's manifestation of life, subverts the common perception of love as desirable and everlasting.

We learn by euphemism

Tonight the sky

came down further two three steps

from itself

and with a relatively starry interest

leaned over to comprehend

the accusations claimed to it by

Despair

- who introduced itself as a completely 

unbeknown former client -

"Here below

abandonment riots helplessly

all of the soul

erected to offer shelter and prosperity

to mortality

remains empty

no human sets foot in it

gone missing

owes a bunch of communal charges

for how long will dreams pay up

the deficit

and the deceased of course delight in everything

for how long will they exist?

Send a human."

Oh Despair

the most durable of all sorrows

who rarely graces consolation

how you have kneeled clinging

from the sky as if it knows

what a human is

not even you Despair

knows what a human is

despite loving humanity all the way up

to the sky.

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

Personal notes: 

This poem was published as part of the collection 'We moved next door' (2007). 

The main theme of the poem is abandonment and loss (of a significant other, of one's own life - mortality) and the inevitable feelings of despair and sorrow that these bring. Its narrative includes a vocal exchange between 'Despair' and the 'sky', two abstract terms that Dimoula personifies in this poem (though one can argue that the 'sky' is not an abstract term, it is used here to allude to the idea of mortality, and perhaps divinity). 

The words that 'Despair' shares with the sky are full of metaphors and personifications (abandonment as a riot, the soul as a house, dreams as guarantees, and the deceased as living beings). 
In these words, Dimoula suggests that humans dream to reconcile with an existing or potential loss (and perhaps their mortality) and that our souls remain vulnerable to these losses. 

These are desperate words, and this is where the poem's comedic undercurrents kick in: Despair in its personification is actually desperate (it voices out a despair), and Dimoula is subtly sarcastic in the last two stanzas, acknowledging that Despair's despair is actually futile. 

In those last two stanzas, the poet doubts that the 'sky' and Despair can understand what it means to be human. Why can't they?Perhaps this implies that desperation is an illogical state with no particular meaning, which can only be described as 'human', and as part of our own mechanisms for dealing with loss and mortality. The last two lines suggest that we remain in desperation until our death, our 'ascent' to the sky. 

Dust

I feel sorry for the housewives
the way they struggle
every morning to dissipate the dust from their home -
dust, the fleshless' ultimate flesh.
Brooms sweepers
vacuums feathers brushes
dusters rags clowns
noises and acrobatic styles,
the movements fall like a whip
on the domestic dust.
Every morning the balconies and windows
amputate a movement and a hot flash:
bodiless heads bob like a yo-yo,
arms protrude and writhe
as if something is cutting them up internally,
broken bodies, halves
severed by the bending.
One more rupture of the Whole.
It keeps breaking,
it breaks even before it exists
as if for this exact reason -
not to be.
So much for a whole life.

But why call it a whole life
when the gage you are holding when we measure it
is always faulty?
Whole is a pathetic word.
It wanders, strapping, as if out of this world.
That's why the skint magnitudes call it crazy.

Dustings airings
for the dust to leave the dark places
to leave the sleep's deep nests,
the sheets and the covers.
And those times at night
when the body jumps up frightened
screaming my Lord I am dwindling,
they will get dusted as well -
dust, the decline and fear
and like I can't bear airing
the private life out in public.
The sleep's swollen pillows
punch each other badly and I get scared
worried in case there will be any damages:
the dreams' crystal wills are in there.
A dream inherits all other dreams,
humans inherit none.
I fear, I can't bear to watch
such a global disinheritance
being tossed away like dust.
Rug bangs
to oust the dust from the designs' nests,
to make it fall in from the colour's bridges.
And the fast gait -
all that delirious to and fro inside the house
on the shallow trust of the carpets
so the people downstairs won't hear what treads
won't hear what doesn't conform -
will be dusted as well
and like I can't bear airing
the private life out in public.

I feel sorry for the housewives
their barren strain.
The dust does not go away, it does not diminish.
Whenever time meets time
a new dust settlement is agreed on.
What protects from it - be it Clean
or Stability - are actually vehicles for its return.
They are the first in line to bring it back.
I have not seen surfaces covered with more dust than those two.
Even Light, the ultimate pristine
delights in carrying dust:
it is a miracle to watch
how the still dust advances through a sun ray,
as if on an electric escalator
those modern ones, the hypnotic ones,
with the emasculated steps.
It is carried
visible like thick ground-up air
to reenter from the open windows
from its open rules.
It makes our existence its home and future.

I let it settle, untidy as I am.
There, studious on the back of a book
about Senescence.
On the prudent photograph of my children
when they used to wear me
their white collared perfectly round Mother
loose sewn from the inside
with hidden sparse stitches
on their school uniform.
They are dressed as Adults now,
the dust now wears their uniform
the round collar,
the dust wears the Mother me
- like all relationships and addictions
should be sawn,
with sparse loose stitches,
so that they can easily be unravelled.
I never dust
the brass athlete
that decorates the big brass clock.
Its muscles
seem angry.
Perhaps because it is forced to firm up
something very invisible,
maybe it firms up time,
maybe time wants
to run faster than usual.
Dust would be pleased with that track record.

It sits on my mirror,
I gave it away, it can have it.
What would I do with such a heath object anyway?
I stopped cultivating my faces in there,
I am not up to ploughing changes
and being doubled up as any other.
I let it sit
I let it approach
come aplenty
I let it pour over me
like a ground up narration of a long story,
I let it approach apace apace
like time that got firmed up
to run faster than usual
and there it sits the heavy cumbersome dust,
I let it sit, age,
it covers me cumbersomely, I let it
        to cover me I let it
        it covers me
that you leave me behind I let it
that you leave me behind I permit
      you leave me behind
        to leave me behind
        I permit you
because I can't bear airing
the private life out in public.



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

Personal notes: 

This poem was published as part of the collection 'My last body' (1981). It is one of Dimoula's longest poems, perhaps the longest. 

When the poem was written in the late 70s and early 80s, and more so than in recent times, many women in Greece were not employed in the public or private sectors. They stayed home as housewives and performed daily chores around the house, including dusting and airing sheets. These images were (and perhaps still are) very familiar and intimate to the Greek psyche, particularly to Athenians. Most Athenians live in high rise building blocks that do not allow for much privacy. One can easily observe her/his neighbours by just having a look out of the window or the balcony. 

In the first stanza, Dimoula appears to disapprove these daily rituals. She playfully uses words associated with dusting as if mocking the housewives and their effort. However, a closer read reveals that Dimoula is using the act of dusting, and 'dust' itself, as a metaphor. Her references to other housewives are not literal. 

In fact, Dimoula is addressing herself in this poem, perhaps using the term 'housewife' to allude to her own situation. The poem's main theme is her struggle to acknowledge and cope with the inevitable passing of time, and the toll that time takes on human relationships (including her marriage and the relationship with her children) and the human body. 

The poet associates dust to 'dwindling', 'decline and fear', and 'Senescence'. She describes how, despite all efforts, dust is inevitable, suggesting that the passing of time is something that no one can avoid. 

In the third stanza, Dimoula repeats a sentence twice: 'and like I can't bear airing the private life out in public'. She will end the poem repeating this sentence, emphasising its importance to the poem's theme. This sentence is an acknowledgement of the value that Dimoula places to her private life, including her own thoughts and her emotions, and of the difficulty in sharing these with others - not only with the general public but also perhaps with the people close to her. It is this difficulty in externalising her thoughts and emotions that lead the poet to accept the 'settling' of 'dust' (and all it represents) in her life. 

The fifth stanza contains perhaps the most startling acknowledgement of the poem -  a reference to the relationship between Dimnoula and her children. Motherhood is not a usual theme in Dimoula's poems, so this is a significant reference. She reminisces the past, when her children went to school and when perhaps they were more attached and close to her. She then acknowledges that those times are gone, and now that her children are adults, her role is almost indifferent. She is not the same mother she used to be. This is a painful realisation, one that many parents would hate to admit. 

The last stanza's first few lines find the poet in front of the mirror, conceding to time's effect on her face and her appearance. She admits that vanity does not interest her, or at least that she has lost any energy required to 'cultivate' her appearance. She then continues on to accept and embrace 'dust' (and what it represents) in her life. 

The last few lines are the poem's most intimate and personal ones. Dimoula changes her narration from first to the third person, directly addressing another person and giving him/her the permission to leave her behind, to forget her. This third person or persons could be her husband, her children, or even time itself. By doing so, Dimoula completely comes to terms with the passing of time and all its effects, because she acknowledges how futile any kind of resistance can be, including externalising her thoughts and emotions to the people around her. 

The plural

Love,
a noun - alias substantive,
indeed substantive,
in the singular form,
neither feminine nor masculine,
etymologically defenceless.
In the plural form
defenceless loves.

Fear,
a common noun,
at first in the singular form
and then in the plural:
fears.
Fears
of everything from now on.

Memory,
the first name of sorrows,
in the singular form,
only in the singular
and with no inflection.
The memory, the memory, the memory.

Night,
a common noun,
etymologically feminine,
in the singular form.
In the plural form
the nights.
The nights from now on.


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Personal notes: 

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

The poem's tone is didactic and playful - the poet is delivering a 'lesson' in grammar, describing how different words can be categorised (in parts of speech) or inflected based on their gender and number. These grammatical functions are significant to the poem's meaning. They emphasise the experience and effect of the poem's key words - love, fear, memory, night. 

The poem's main theme is revealed in its first word - 'Love'.  Mrs Dimoula's lesson (this poem) is not just about grammar, but also a lesson about love.  

She first suggests that the word 'Love' has no gender. In the Greek language, 'Love' is actually etymologically masculine. By stating otherwise, that love is neither masculine nor feminine, Dimoula perhaps suggests that someone's gender may not matter when experiencing love. What matters is that the person who falls in love is defenceless, in all (or most) occasions ('In plural form'). 

The second 'lesson' is about 'Fear' and love. The source of this fear is not exactly evident in the poem, although one can associate this fear with the defenceless state of being in love. That this fear multiplies over time suggests that the passing of time can deteriorate love. Love is defenceless over time. 

The 'lesson' about 'Memory' and love is an interesting one - Dimoula here suggests that love is associated with one single and very strong memory (the past) that is inflexible and unchangeable. This state of the past is in contrast to what is happening at present and what will happen in the future. Dimoula suggests that memories and the past are important when being in love, perhaps because they are the only constant part of it. They are also an act of desperation, of holding onto something when everything is changing or deteriorating. 

The last 'lesson', about 'Night' and love, binds together the previous arguments - the fear that love will deteriorate defenselessly haunts the nights of the person in love, forever.