PARASKEVI MEMOU

 

PARASKEVI MEMOU

 

Light Of Hope

 

I am talking about the steps

that I taught you to take

on how to kill me.

The buzz of the bee

transfixes me.

The shadow shakes

echoes of waste.

 

I am talking

about the intangible steps

that flicker the senses

and swirl around archaic columns 

like veils of memory

 

 

Untitled

 

The hours,

feckless preparations,

tame fear

and entrap

the adversities of memory,

into a lethargy of recollection.

 

The flute

undertook the action of hope,

in the nights

when death hides

in cenotaphs of desperation.

 

I beg

for the yesterday that I did not appreciate,

for the hopeful form of tomorrow

I paint on respirators.

 

Colours, colours, colours

thus, spring will endure the crucifixion.

 

 

Under Arrest

 

 

I was reborn in the cell of patience

with confessions of Homeric oscillations,

and the knowledge

of the decrypted linear*alphabet.

 

I am counting the hours

with the swallow's folded wings

in a meadow where the full moon is reflected

in captivity.

 

I memorized Persephone’s mysteries

and I descended into the idleness

that is kneading crosses of deposition.

 

The streets are deserted,

as if they were mutilated prisoners,

of an invisible besieger.

 

Cunning execution

is preying upon the sternum of silence mercilessly,

burying us in our mother's womb

armored and perhaps… redeemed.

 

The data

revealed their elliptical existence

riding hurricane waves,

while we, the unfortunate ones,

are unable to interpret the mathematical models

of the geographical classification.

 

The siege machines

tames our knowledge

within four walls

that smell of Easter Sunday,

the insemination of eternal immortality.

 

PARASKEVI MEMOU

 

PARASKEVI MEMOU {1961}. Film director. Poet. She was born and raised in the Skepastos village of Kalavrita, in the north of the Peloponnese. In 1984 and 1985 her poems were published published in the Hydria and Ostraka magazines. Her first directorial work was the short film ‘ALTAMIRA’. She has collaborated with important Greek actors. The film based on his poetry, entitled ‘Mega to tis Thalassis Kratos’, was shot in 2008. She has collaborated as a news journalist with many newspapers in the Peloponnese. In 1985 her first collection of poems entitled ‘Diavenontas’ came out. In 2006 she published a book with news articles, entitled “AFONON DIAGEIN”. Her poems have been published in many anthologies. The Greek encyclopedia HARI PATSI hosts her poems. Her collection of poems entitled ‘Sto vraho tis Andromedas’ came out in 2018. The collection of poems entitled ‘Ise o anthropos’ came out a year later, in 2019. She has won numerous awards in international competitions. In the latest edition of the Nosside World Poetry Prize – Nosside World Poetry Prize, in 2019, one of her poems, translated into Italian by Giorgia Karvunaki, was awarded, entitled ‘Supplicants of the Gods of the poor’.