10/16/2014

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The three Minoan girls on Naxos
dark red skin, depth like amber/ distance/
red tea of shadow and leaves
in a glass, was their skin,
slim with black-brown hair, like curling blades
black dresses, ragged folds,
round hexagonal sunglasses

Remember riding in formation in the Near East?
It was so beautiful like hinged insects
we folded in the wind
and knew instant futures

Pelt traders, cool basements,
Athens boiling brains from the feet up
crossing to Psiri, sat on the step
the man folded back from his zimmer-frame
asleep just like that,
bottle of water and tobacco laid neatly beside
like a desk

peach pulp hot on the pavement dropping
light bulbs on Kolonou burning in the day

air-conditioned zone, guarded mall in ripped city
streets lead down to a pool of leaks
a lake at the old airport, I crave red words
the ones beginning with K and ending S
such as 'Kalos', 'Knossos',
puddles of clay
'Ariadne' is a black and white word, dappled, bruised,
like the moon, left behind.








A moon looking down onto an encampment of tents, all carved into stone, on a slab attached to the frontage of a small building in Athens. (c) Barnaby Tidman 2015

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