I
My places
find shelter
in ruined buildings
suffocated atmospheres
in fires growing fast

II
My places
falling prone
to losing eyes
fragmented sights
common persecutions
body maiming

III
my places
bend from despair
in bombed neighborhoods
figures with hollow eyes
of hunger
and sleepless

IV
my places
stopped being preservable
because they completely lost
their past
their seas become ill
their costumes
being distorted

V
my places
nor have violins
neither been fire dancing
only a counterfeiting frisk
of a threepenny leap

VI
my places
memories of iron beds
in ward camps
scratched arms
walls with damp
face same as rocks
worship of motherland

VII
my places
where nobody regrets
cities shattered
from the inside
and stayed mournful
in distant shores

VIII
my places
in a strange calm
in a hibernating season
like throwing their children
in scorched palm trees
pinching the clog
of mutant needs

IX
my places
stay still behind
pill-boxes
and loopholes
behind fire beaten groves
alone in abandoned piers
acid rains
waste piles
stuck travels

X
my places
prehistoric statues
of oblivion and insignificance
in guillotines turned in
bridled clearings
dissolve
ostracize
in heame pieces
on every floor

XI
my places
medieval towers
with battlements and spears
watchtowers and hideouts
where they hang
dissidents unfairly
when speaking with shivering
and passions all over the body

XII
my places
fluent as the candlelight
in glints
on uncertain songs
and stale slogans

XIII
my places
transversed resonances
with outdated codes
in merciless towers
cross mournful waters
and booming
guillotines

XIV
my places
swaying fearful
in front of a few moons
lost in ruins
brimstone of isolation
piles of garbage
where pyrrhic
bloody flags
waving

XV
my places
in a limbo
in a total time
collapse
soaked into
the yellow rain
drowned them
as another shroud
and their inhabitants
left
without memory

*Translation: Dimitris Troaditis. The original in Greek is here: https://tokoskino.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=10180&action=edit

**The poem read in both languages in the event of Melbourne Poets Union “Journeys”, Sunday, 26 October 2014, in Immigration Museum of Melbourne.