MARTHA VASKANTIRA

 

Humanity And The Child

 

Our century was handcuffed.

Fortune tellers sell out vision for a few more oracles,

the arenas became virtual,

laughter was sold to the clown of habit,

and humanity is looking for a good shirt to look beautiful.

 

Slaves dream.

The deposits of the ideals are money transferred

stacked behind arrogant, ambitious mirrors.

The Pontius Pilate forgot their hands in the sea,

and humanity wonders why it doesn’t fit in its own shoes.

 

Hypocrisy redeemed the light of freedom,

The years, hunched, go by without rise in their gait,

and humanity looks out of the window at its life going by.

 

A child hung his crib on the tank that burned his city,

playing next to death without fear.

A child the country, a child the earth, a child the universe,

undressed the war.

 

And love smiled.

Now humanity can leave its home again

 

The Beast

 

What did you give to the poor beggar today?

 Installments of souls, the banks take

since they have nothing else to collect.

 

The Beast wakes up.

His hands are drowning the head of humanity.

 In it's face, the map of Globalization.

Its  eyes, the mirrors of Capitalism.

Huge mouth, entrance to eternal poverty.

 Its  legs are calipers, it caught us all.

You are a deplorable ruler, your speech is now a funeral speech.

You are an unfortunate immigrant, your life vision unpaid. We dance with sighs, in the corpse of the world.

 We all swallow piles of coals.

To burn our desires.

We mutilated our nature.

We live in the underworld.

Hades rules us.

The Beast attacks. It throws fires.

It eats lives,

spits dreams.

It runs on the streets.

It presses that is left.

The child lost it's voice.

It was left without a mother.

They took her for experiments.

They want to see  if she can withstand hunger ..

She could not stood it.

The child will follow.

 It will try expired drugs.

It is the child of the Experimental animal.

The Beast slowly eats the sun.

You are a cowardly passerby who just looks at it.

Why don't you fight to get rid of it?

You let it thresh in your home.

Will your price crumble if you set fire to this House of Tolerance?

Kill the Beast.

Save yourself.

The Beast does not die,

 when our fear is alive.

 

You Have Only Them

 

Our hands fell like beaten birds on the table of the earth.

 Under the stones of the slave markets our laughter was hidden.

The Resurrection is slipping from our fists.

 We still endure.

 We stand in a world that knocked our feet down.

 We all drink from the same drop.

 Tears and blood water the soil of our souls.

 It is our payment for the years of patience.

 You hear a voice.

 It is your brothers who are lost.

 It’s are you.

That you sing through their lips.

 It is their love that blossomed in pain.

 They are the ones who are crucified with you.

 They only have you.

 You have only them.

 The fingers of our prison drown us.

 Together we will save the child from the prison guard.

 With the spring sun in our mouth,

   people will grow back on our backs.

 

MARTHA VASKANTIRA

 

MARTHA VASKANTIRA was born in 1977 in Patras. She studied Philology and Philosophy at the University of Patras. She is involved in theater and music. She is distantly related to the poet Miltiadis Malakasis. She appeared in letters in the year 1996 with the publication of poems in literary magazines. A total of ten of her books have been published. The poetry collections: My Young Thoughts'' editions Publications About the Arts, ''Good night'', editions ''Gavrielidis'', ''Apologismos'' editions ''P. Koulis'', collective poetry work ''Writing Works'', Orionas publications, ''Troian Horse'' and the theatrical-poetic monologues ''Peace'' from Kouros publications. Four fairy tales, "Dahlia" and "The Ice Santa Claus" from the publications "Koulis", which were dramatized in Patras, "The Peach and the Fairy" and "My Best Friend" from the publications " "Kouros". Her poems have also been dramatized in performances by theater groups in Athens and Patras. She has been awarded in theater, song and poetry competitions. She is a member of the International Society of Greek Writers-Artists (D.E.E.L.), UNESCO of Greece, the Society of Greek Writers (E.E.L.), the Greek Cypriot Cultural Group (E.P.O.K.) as well as representative of the group in the city of Patras, of the "Organization of Young Artists" and special secretary of the "Society of Writers of Southwest Greece". She has written and directed three plays. In September 2022, she won first prize for writing the theatrical monologue "Peace and the Child" at the International Peace Cultural Olympiad held in Delphi. In the performance "The children of Greece" which was presented in many cities of Greece and concerns the life and work of the great creators and artists, Mimi Traiforou-Sofias Vembo, the one-act play by Martha Vaskantira entitled "The child and the peace''. The direction is by Vassilis Traiforos and Penelope Chalkia. The monologue was performed by Penelope Halkia. In December 2022, the theater department of the Polyphonic Choir of Patras, directed by Mrs. Athena Kallimani, who dramatized and directed the fairy tale of "Santa Claus of Ice", will stage it in a performance at the Pammikrasiatiko theater in Patras.  The Soroptimist women's association "Danielis" included her own work in a related event, which it held for the women Logotechnides of Patras. In 2022, the newspaper "Peloponnisos" proposed her to be a candidate for the persons of the year 2022.