Hydra

Gartenfieber I - Gardenfever I 100 x 80 cm acryl on canvas by Karin Goeppert

HYDRA

It would seem there’s nothing

better to do in Iowa than to turn

a prize-winning hog into a heap

of barbecue on paper plate,

potato salad hugging

its oily flank, or turning a

sonnet sequence into tenure,

or your wife into my special friend,

sifting through

the fragments, making things up as we go along.

Remember what 4-H stands for?

Neither do I.

No hogs on this Saronic Island.

Just scores of donkeys more or

less inedible but essential—

no cars, just a garbage truck—

for hauling stuff and tourists around.

The hairy waiter’s face is lit up

with a yellow-toothed leer—mother-

fucker also seems to like your wife—as he

smuggles on-the-house ouzo to your table

and you, hammered, nothing but fragments

no one’s bothering to sift through.

This isn’t Iowa, Mary. The island’s harbor

town curling up into the burning blue

nutmeg-cinnamon-cumin odor

redolent of sex on a warm afternoon

in summer. Your mind, finally catching

up with your body, begins to loosen up.

Suspicions fade away. Your dreams

are in technicolor. Back from a swim

you are just in time for lunch—

she’s making tomato salad with those big chunks

of feta cheese and those fat Kalamata olives

you love so much, whose praise you sing endlessly,

and she’s poured you a glass of

crisp retsina—lunch on a hot Greek island 

just the two of you watching the play of light

on flowers and white washed stone buildings

is not only better than most dreams

it might even be one.

Hotter than Hell

When we chose the music for  this Greek blog post we were again reminded of how strange and nice it is that we have a very similar music taste even though we grew up so far apart from each other - two worlds basically. AND we both love the Mediterranean! So here goes: Some Greek music for you.

So far up 38,5 x 28,5 cm

PELOPONNESIAN HEAT

There’s a whisper in the pine woods. Very pretty.

Makes you want to write poems. Then it sounds

like girls in flip-flops and kitchen clogs

on the steps of The Quaintest Taverna

You Ever Saw. Your quill begins to molt. Soon, sprawled

in the hot dust, bloated like some sexual insect,

you can’t even walk anymore. Girls tumble by, fanning the world

with their thin cotton dresses and shadow-casting

eye lashes. The thick blossoms of oleander bushes

smell like scorched milk and on the rocks below the cliffs

where an odor of burning jasmine lingers the women too

are burning in the sun. Seen from the old town walls

the hills on the other side of the gulf, violet

and smoky, are on fire as you crawl off into the shade, seeking relief—

an old man perched on a donkey smiles at you, lips parched, eyes

damp with pity, and says, “The heat, it is like Africa.” 

Aphrodite's Child - The Four Horsemen