Right of Passage

by Panos Panagiotopoulos

At night, they gather at the docks,
men married to the dawn,
they sweat ire underneath shirts
filled with holes.

A guy I see for the first time
rolls a cigarette under heavy rain,
the paper becomes one with his lips
as he tries to light it.
His eyes belong to a boy,
still flirting with shadows behind
40-ton containers.
His eyes match my own,
a boy's eyes.
He smiles.

But no one laughs,
not these iron-mouthed men,
men that sweat curses against
the stars and the night,

underneath shirts filled with holes
looking like jagged windows
on an ochre painted house,
like one of those overlooking the Aegean sea,
on an island,
where it never rains.

The Great War

by Panos Panagiotopoulos

“Qui plume a, guerre a. Ce monde est un vaste temple dédié à la discorde.”
“To hold a pen is to be at war. This world is one vast temple consecrated to discord.”
--Voltaire--

There is a war,
and this war goes on forever.
You won’t know it’s there;
no one will tell you about it.

Survivors of the war have no scars to show,
they have no limbs missing.
In their eyes, one could see,
if one would choose to,
the battlefields, cities in ruins,
endless nights under a red sky,
and when they speak,
if one would choose to listen,
one could hear the distant echoes of gunfire
and explosion.

Walk the streets;
ride the subway;
somewhere along your journey you will find them,
you will hear them whispered, maybe,
you will see them on a wall about to crumble
from their weight;
you will finally know the words,

verses of spoken poetry,
spoken bullets of war poetry,
pronounced fiercely,
slowly,
violently,
words that roll like tanks on tongues of gravel,
words in neat piles,

ammo for the war that is fought within.

There is a war,
and this war goes on forever.
You won’t know it’s there;
you won’t know that you are fighting it.

The war leaves no scars to show,
no stories from the battlefield to share.
Only the distant echoes
of gunfire and explosion,
in your voice.

Planets

by Panos Panagiotopoulos

There is a great fire,
a great fire in the desert
and animals gather on the dunes,
watching it from afar.

We converge around it,
oblivious to the eyes on the dunes lying in the distance,
oblivious to the ever-changing landscape around us.
We dance in homocentric circles, our faces painted red
by the fiery glow, wet faces painted red,
flames claiming the glistening surface of tears on our cheeks.

Coming from all directions,
we meet where the flames are high,
bearing no names,
no identity.
The past is an unnecessary burden,
so our feet go deep in the sand wherever we walk
but we bear no names for others.

Tears on our cheeks as we dance around our sun,
flames read our names to ourselves as they graze
our faces, turning them into steam, forming clouds.
Still, no redemption for the past; there is no need for that.
Future is the need that we have. We need a Future.
And time;

time is animals gathering on dunes to watch planets
orbiting the great fire in the distance.
Each of us, a planet of memories and words buried
in the ever-changing landscape of the desert
in our hearts.

spinal tap

by Panos Panagiotopoulos

so bring your wings on me
make each flutter meaningful,
make it matter to yourself,
it's possible that I am one who should not
be trusted or relied on,
[no]
I am not your friend nor lover
but still, talk to me, pretend I am either
talk to me, I'm fed up with all this crying
all I read about is tears and hearts enduring
bodies under word and dot stampedes
[space]
I'm tired and I need to see
a crack, somewhere,
the foramina of days
as they press their patent grim against my skin,
[available]
the sun retreats and I'm more or less sitting
by my self,
writing radioactive verses
[for us]
on my self
I wanted to be the book you'd read one day
handed to you by a friend or lover
or sometimes both, you'd lick your fingers and
rummage through me
[lover]
because your life is the party I'm crashing
observing your guests from the coffee table
until their rude potential sits on me
so quiver and make it matter
make it meaningful, if only
to yourself