For health

Who would have imagined
my survival's last companion,

a Pacemaker.

A union of one flesh, obviously.

It nestles inside my sternum

happy with setting my heart

but also grateful.

It recognises that
it too lives by dint of my heart

like a man does.

The heart’s guardian angel.

Accompanies it everywhere, during sleep

at church, the cemetery

the cafe, the theatre

the mind’s
long journeys.

It lifts

all of the heart’s weights,

the heart must not lift even its own feather. 

A touchingly discreet companion

never asking about the heart’s past

but measuring its pulse day and night.

It says to the heart
I am here don’t worry

I am all yours believe me

as if in love. Madly.

Momentarily. Like others before it.

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

Personal notes: 

This poem was published as part of the collection 'Public time' (2014).

The poem is a prime example of the poet's long list of musings about love and loss. 

The subject of the poem is the romantic 'relationship' between a heart and its pacemaker [The heart and the pacemaker are personified in the original Greek text - the heart is a feminine noun and the pacemaker a masculine noun.]

The use of the first person in the first stanza ('my survival') suggests that Dimoula is referring to her own medical condition, which makes this a personal and confessional poem.

At first, the 'relationship' at the centre of the poem may seem amusing. A closer read suggests something more 'classic', universal and sincere at its core - a love story of unparalleled intimacy, affection and co-existence, and, ultimately, devastating failure. 

Dimoula achieves a remarkable balance between contradictory elements in the poem's story and its delivery. The subject is both tragic and comic, she is caustic and tender, bitter and caring, detached and emotional, wise and immature. 

There is also no happy end to the story - this love, like all past loves in the poet's life, is doomed to fail. The denouement is foreshadowed in the fourth stanza (one of the places the poet visits is the cemetery - a symbol of all the poet has lost in the past, including her husband) but delivered with a powerful blow at the poem's last line. 

God's puzzlement

Rickety nights
and sleepy stars
at Koumoundouros square

Several darknesses form a line dance at Euripides street
as the houses' plaster wreaths
lose their details and start searching for them
letting out a mysterious 'oh' that sighs.
The flower pots heat up on the balconies,
while further inside dreams sleep naked.

Somewhere there and unspecified,
a separation
snores chantingly and innocently.
At the rooftops
a summer predisposition for sadness
sets up for sleep.

For you, all of these
one balcony,
you sit and teach the stars' positions.
You point first tο Ursa Major
then the minor one
and then slide down to the North Star.

Your finger knows well
the twinkle's barren line.
It enters carefully into the light's coves, avoiding
the dryness of the darkness.
It steps aside wherever it meets a falling star,
lets the fall go first.

It starts again,
navigates closely those tiny,
almost sank at the very far,
cherished stars,
which have a disrupted presence -
loneliness' lighthouses.
At those sank stars
your finger stumbles,
loads up the distance from the one
and takes it to the other.

It starts again,
points out, sails, resembles
a sky ship's mast
taking for a stroll God's puzzlement:
how do we humans survive?
How do we survive
saying time has passed.
At Piraeus street a rooster strains
to say it dawns.

At Euripides street
the houses' plaster wreaths
find their details:
plaster flowers,
plaster abstract cupids,
then a whole part of the design is missing,
we don't know what happened,
and the plaster flowers appear again,
the plaster cupids
laugh their hearts out
with this repetition.

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

Personal notes: 

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

Here, Dimoula revisits her favourite subjects (love, loss and loneliness) over a hot night in one of Athens' old neighbourhoods. 

The choice of the location, the tone of the poem, and the direct address to a second person suggest this is a personal poem, possibly describing the state of the poet's relationship with an intimate other. 

The first stanza reveals the location and time of narration: the Psirri neighbourhood in central Athens during late night. It is unclear whether the poet is physically or mentally present at the location, but the description of the houses and stars suggests the poet is in physical or mental fatigue.  

The second stanza describes a physical or mental wander through one of Psirri's main streets. It is pitch dark, so the poet can't see the plaster decorations on the houses - these are later revealed to be symbolic of love and affection. 

The third stanza suggests a possible cause for the poet's fatigue and inability to experience affection - a mental or physical separation from her partner. 

The next four stanzas describe a 'lesson' given by the poet herself or the poet's partner (it is unclear whether the second person addressed is herself or her partner). The subjects of this 'lesson' are the inevitable distance between lovers, the inevitable loss of one's partner, and the inherent loneliness in humans. These subjects are delivered via a tour of the night sky and a star's symbolic singularity, distance and eventual fall. 

This 'lesson' is explicitly put in spoken words in the seventh stanza: 'time has passed', meaning there is an end to everything. This hard 'lesson' generates God's puzzlement, which stresses the enormity of its impact on humans and stresses also human strength and resilience. Our own creator is amazed by our survival when having to go through this 'lesson'. 

The last two lines of the seventh stanza introduce a change in the poem: the sun is rising. 

As suggested by the last stanza, although the day brings the light, it fails to appease the poet's mood and situation. The wreath's design, symbolic here of love and affection, is actually missing whole parts, a situation repeated in all of the houses' plaster decorations. The poet suggests here that her experience (the 'lesson') can be recurring and universal. 

[In the fifth stanza, Dimoula refers to a falling star. She refers also to a falling star in her poem 'On occasion' ('Departures' sound' 2001), which shares a similar theme and mood with 'God's puzzlement'.]  

Curriculum

Time
I submit to you my thesis
with you, basically, its subject
because you have made so far
what I am now.

Ι came from scant resources
I wasn't sent abroad for higher
ignorance. I stayed here paying rent
to a low ceiling inner
knowledge of my homeland.

I followed the cost effective
method of an absent teacher
and any absence in general,
which is a more extensive education method.

I struggled, impossible to enter
the difficult chapter
of 'absent meaning'.
What I had found to have
was absent to others.
And although I wondered rigorously,
wonder itself marked me with zero.
I corrected the mark wondering anew
about the absent logic of your method
time
to bring changes and by wonder
take back completely erasing
the previous gentle form
that things had
before they became educated.

And now even
with the method of an absent maturing
I shrink get startled wonder
how even all of these absences have changed
they were not as frequent

how death has changed
it was not as frequent

when love passionately introduced it to me.


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

Personal notes: 

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

In this poem, Dimoula muses about the passing of time, love and mortality. 

The last line of the poem is crucial to interpreting what has preceded. Dimoula suggests time takes its toll on love, as it does in life. 

For most of the poem, she personifies time and talks directly to it, acknowledging the changes and loses the passing of time brings in our lives and our loves. 

In the first stanza, Dimoula suggests the passing of time, growing up, and our mortality shape love and who we are. She presents life and love as forms of education and time as the ultimate teacher. 

Dimoula continues to make parallels between time and education throughout the rest of the poem.

In the second to fourth stanzas, she talks about being loyal to a country, a house, or a lover despite an absence of reciprocity. Absence is a key theme here: it is repeated several times, suggesting it is a major experience in life and love. 

The last three lines present the full implications of this experience: change, loss, and death are intrinsic parts of life and love. 

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.