Fani Papageorgiou
Two Poems
Road Trip
Pick an exit, you say
gas stations in your eyes,
the impact of the camel on the volume of trade.
Keep driving
unhook my bra with your right arm
your left one on the steering wheel
no wonder people do this.While you’ve been sitting too long in hotel bars
the air is taking on an evening chill
dark trees and rare minerals are pressing you in from all sides,
you stay unnerved
as vertebrae are coming apart.
Come on, stay with problems longer
heat can make a person crazy
wake-up, make the bed, grind coffee.
Can you do this?
Knock once for yes, twice for no.Yearning is an airshaft coated in wet sand
cleaning the eaves trough doesn’t help.
Do you want to keep going
I can’t hear you
did you grind the beans to brew the coffee,
knock once for yes, twice for no.My hair smells of gasoline
and I want to be broken to bits.
Practice waiting then
exercise your Miranda rights
be solemn
let the iron in your blood be the dowser’s twitch
press your hands hard on the uncushioned bones on my back or else
this is less than life.Linear B
I am up here
It is raining
I see a cistern with a turtle in it.
This is our life.So tell me
what is most important to you
you have a blade of grass in your mouth
I think I know what you want.I slip down a rung
Then another
This is when accidents happen.I am testing the air
the air which runs down your spine
to check if it’s crooked.
Do tell me what is most important to you.The cistern rotates and departs in a slow canter.
Head, limbs and tail withdraw into the leathery shell of the turtle
There is rain on my hands.I run towards the sea
Now there is nowhere to go.The tide ebbs and the tide flows
keeping still
we feel less harassed.
