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.


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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.


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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.


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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.

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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.