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.