Poetry issues #22, 2/5: Hibernation Advice – Family
Last week Part 1 of poetry issues #22, containing "A Balcony" and "The View" was published. This week's poem is "Hibernation Advice," and "Family" is its accompanying visual piece. Every Friday for the next three weeks, a new poem will be published along with its unique artwork. Together, they will comprise poetry issues #22.
You can find out more about the poetry issues project here.
Poetry issues #22, 1/5: A Balcony – The View
Every Friday for the next four weeks, a new poem will be published, along with its unique artwork. Together, they will comprise poetry issues #22.
You can find out more about the poetry issues project here.
I am happy to announce that the poem "Seasons (het jaar rond)" that Alida van Leeuwen and I wrote in collaboration has been published in the newspaper LisserNieuws on October 1st. "Seasons (het jaar rond)" is a two languages experiment, and the result is quite interesting. Here is the poem (without the spelling mistake that appears in the paper):
Seasons (het jaar rond) - Duo dicht Maria Exarchou/Alida van Leeuwen
It starts in winter as a distracting recollection
of poppy red dispersing in the late afternoon sun.
Ik voel de eerste zonnestralen
zie zonnig geel en vurend rood
en spring vol vreugde de lente in
Riding the tip of the rainbow I shed my old skin
freed by the explosion of purple in the meadows.
De warme kleuren van de zomerse zon
geven alles een nieuwe tint
Mijn zonnebril beschaduwt de wereld
I don't want this life to end. I find closure in
silver autumn clouds: Like seasons, we'll return.
Een zucht vol winterse geuren
vullen mijn daagse dromen
De temperatuur daalt
Update
The show mentioned below was followed by another one with the same theme, on another location of BplusC, at Stevenshof Library, Trix Terwindtstraat 6 in Leiden. The show began early May (2019) and is on until the 15th of June. Here's an impression:
__________________________________________
Just like last year, the library of BplusC (Nieuwstraat 4, Leiden) is celebrating poetry with a unique group exhibition. And since it is 350 years from the death of Rembrandt, this is an exhibition in his memory. The show has already started (on the 29th of January) and will be on until the 25th of February.
For now, if you can't visit the library in person to enjoy the works of almost thirty artists, you can read my contribution here:
The Night Watch
A darkness as thick as molasses —
a spoonful of struggles yet to come.
There is humanity in simple gestures,
frailty in men carrying useless guns.
Depth is carved on dancing shadows
a soft light enters within from above.
A kind hand smoothens the contrasts
until a night is not a night after all.
Update: Visiting the show, I was happy to find out that another one of my poems, "Psychographics" from the Poetry Issues project, is also included. Enjoy below a small sample of a beautiful exhibition curated by Alida van Leeuwen:
[At the same time, another exhibition is taking place in The Hague.]
A very special labor, the January-February issue. I hope you enjoy stories of identity and struggle:
Scales
Better watch people
from afar, like big cities.
Admire their beauty
from a distance and avoid
touching their fences.
On Saturn I'd be
five kilos less and that's what
matters more in this
floating universe where not
a thing weighs more than I.
Family Gatherings
All children wanted to be men
and no one cared to pick
homegrown rosemary and dill
for the women in the kitchen.
The boys came in pairs to steal
little cheese pies, then went on
with their precious outdoor life
of playing football and riding bikes.
The girls feared nothing more
than becoming their mothers
with lives spent over lemons
and eggs in hot fish soups.
We didn’t know then that kitchens
held so many secrets, far more
steaming than backyard politics.
Women have been always winning.
Breathe
The crashing density the stuffy thoughts
Of asthmatic lungs gulping
The fake air with greed
Everyone is trying
To grasp what they can
An old woman's out of luck
Girlish games
Tired pigtails unwashed
Nicotine and coffee but
Without infatuation
The earth is flat just
Give me oxygen
I'll Play it Cool
Every time
you want to hurt me
you twist your tongue
to warm it up
before it hits me
with whip-like speed.
I was never fast
with words and now
your gun of a finger
is pointing at me.
I will remain silent.
You cannot win.
The Duck Painting
It’s hard to tell if it is monochrome
or just faded into a pale delft blue
and why it's hanging in the living room
in this furnished simulation of some
home. I’ll change it – a lasting addition
in the long list of intentions. I start
counting the ducks but get distracted
by the frame. Gold and metallic and
more eighties than my mother. She
had one that looked the same. So,
there’s a faint reminder of who I am.
You find strange ways to connect
when life is condensed to a trolley bag.
[You will learn more about the Poetry Issues project here.]
Five months ago, I mailed these works to a person I have never seen, to be included in an upcoming mail-art exhibition entitled What Makes You Happy. This group exhibition is taking place now in The Hague and you can read more about it here (.pdf courtesy of Alex Witter).
This is the second time my work is being included in a group exhibition in the Netherlands. The first one was here. I'm looking forward to many more!
Enjoy the November-December issue!
Some days felt like prose
in a sloppy, ambitious mind,
striving to be written but
unable to attain
comprehensive form.
Trudging through the quagmire
of censorship the days dreamt
of the day they’d flow like verse
unconcerned with technique,
never intended to be performed.
But language and reason stood
as one immovable rock, blocking
intuition and broader definitions.
Those days became ink dissolved
in stale waters drunk by mosquitos.
The Feather
Not from a chaste, white dove
but factory born, with no potential
to reach the sky. Promiscuous and orange
descended from a flamboyant boa, full
of silky plastic charm. Forever reeking
of cigarillos and patchouli, imperfect
and only fit for falling, first right
then left and back in a slow diagonal
dance of false aerodynamics rectified
by gravity’s unfaltering axis.
Coming Home
Everything has to end
where it started from.
That’s why I always return
to the scene of our calm crimes
tracing back long lines of sin
filling out logs with updates
on the metastases and spread
of guilt. Everything has to end
where it started from and I’d sworn
there wouldn’t be a doorstep
I would stand on twice
when knocking would be dropping
my arms in unwise surrender.
But how tempting it feels to unburden!
Fake Fighters
We thought it would be the last fine day.
We stayed outside and took it all in.
The sun, the breeze, the smell of green.
When more gleaming mornings came
we stayed in, restricted by circumstance
or obligation. We let out sighs of relief
when the land finally gave in to the cold.
Even happiness had gotten tiring.
*for Ger Lataster
The reverent viewers debated in whispers
whether light could be mastered
in dark times, obscenely reflected as it were
on a pearl earring, forcing them to admit
the relevance of beauty in the ugly,
cranky world. They went on from wall to wall
undeterred by the overload of masters
of the Golden Age, all of them demanding
a bow. A boy of five, with no taste for detail
and no appreciation at all for human effort
pointed at the ceiling and chose
the abstraction of the working man
and the strawberry jam before he ran
straight to the windows past the Rembrandts
and their servants, unabashedly showing
preference for the frames of moving life.
[You will learn more about the Poetry Issues project here.]
The September-October issue should be enough to keep you busy for a while. Enjoy.
Cooking
Over a boiling pot
we wait for small epiphanies
bemused by the stillness
of the branches outside.
Do our black cats make us
witches? Shall we burn?
The Inquisition says we shall.
The Weather
Sure, let’s talk about the weather
like our lives depend upon it
like our crops will fail
and famine will hit
our fatty brains.
Relieved that it won’t rain
we’ll go for a walk
step on our horseshit
and still come home miserable.
Better stay inside, watch a movie.
110/116
Between birthday parties
and treasure hunts
I have to explain
why I made him and
affirm I’ll still love him
after I die.
I’d never thought
I'd give myself up
but here we are
swearing by Jedi honor,
shovelling sand in ecstasy.
Nothing much in it
but abundant poetry.
Seaside Resort
Don’t scorn the floral patterns
and the doughnut-shaped waists
nor the high-pitched laughter
and the fuzzy stares.
Footsteps echo louder
at the end of August
and pining mixes with the smell
of fresher fish and ice-cream cones.
Grandpa
Old bones assembled by magic.
Nothing else seems to hold.
We all scolded him for lying
but he was the conqueror
of the seven seas
in my five-year-old mind.
He instilled in me two shipwrecks
an abstract love for Argentina
and going rogue under fake names
in the US in the 50’s.
The giant is folding in his seat:
An overripe camellia flower
that forgot to fall apart.
[You will learn more about the Poetry Issues project here.]
Poetry Issues has skipped a beat and there is no July-August issue. However, this is for a good reason besides the holiday slack. I was invited by Alex Witter to participate in a mail-art exhibition and I've been busy answering the hard question posed by the theme: "What makes you happy?"
Silence
A rare walk-in gem
shutting out the noise.
A meditation as deep
as death, with openings
from where to emerge fearless
and wise. Darkness as peace
for wild, overexposed eyes.
Wild Flowers
They come uninvited.
Pink and purple perseverance.
Hideous unsanctioned seeds
making no plea to the bees.
I let them take over the garden.
It’s always the stranger
that moves you forward.
Driving
I get this funny feeling
that there’s enough air
in my lungs, the certainty
that we will make it.
Brush strokes rushing
past, tangled in your hair
the world, a bonfire simile
lit by midday heat.
If you try breathing
your body simply dares
to ache, making getaway
from its weary myths.
Your Laughter
Not the reserved, polite one
but the one that gushes out
letting your teeth show
thrusting your head back
blocking your breath –
bouncing
from wall
to wall. An echo
fighting dust from dust to dust.
Alex Witter has set up a great inventory of all artists and works participating in this upcoming exhibition, where you'll find amazing work from artists from all over the world.
The May - June issue is out! Here you go:
American Football
Back and forth.
Circles disguised
in straight go routes.
Until you get things
right
things get you.
Until routes go straight
in disguised circles,
forth and back.
In Red
Those toes in the shower
I’m looking down to
belong to a Lynchian heroine.
They say depersonalization
results from violence
and I ponder over the form.
Do not knock, just enter.
Privacy is a luxury
only spoiling a good plot.
Alekaki
My friend likes the number eight.
It completes her broken parts
and promises the unity of one.
You will find her crouching
among quitting and lighting it up
on a white pile of unironed roles.
She’s the colour blue, as found
in nature: A wondrous reflection
of elusive light. A life of words.
Ode to Nothing
As a child I thought
I controlled the wind. Perhaps
the wind controls me.
Before great sorrow
the air stands still. I know then
something is coming.
Dry petals falling
like snow. Who’d have thought death would
be so beautiful.
Unhealthy are
Your stress relief habits
and the junk you eat.
How the world treats you
and what you think of it.
The screens you watch
and the dust you breathe.
But tomatoes won’t
save you from cancer.
Treating the symptom is
not the answer.
Wars will not be prevented
by treaties. And nobody likes kiwis.
[You will learn more about the Poetry Issues project here.]