Vol 2 No 1 2008
Words of the Prow
What a splendid sea
Writing itself on paper
Masts, storms, islands
Oars on the water line
Whipping up the sea
Cables anchors and lanterns
Sway over the portholes
I hear the enigmatic rumour of a whale
Electric eels and morays down below
Phosphorescent in the great deep
Swarms of flying fish
Performing pole leaps fall
On the deck of the ship
In the blood-stained sunset
A triangular sail like a thorn
Sharks stubbornly follow us
The coral reef to the West
Rises up tremendous
With no passage anywhere
A squall of wind lies in wait
With peaks of petrified waves
At dawn the wind bites the head
Of a water spout with a hair of clouds
We sink into a maelstrom of salt
All this I understand, except this one:
How did Alexander the Great
Find himself wedded
To a lady seal for a wife?
After many sheep herds of waves
A dead calm surrounded us
Nailed us down for a fortnight
Lights of St. Nicholas on the masts
Helens the Dioskouri and evil spirits
Sponges breathe out their holy smoke
From a bottomless chasm under the sea
When we were little we made paper boats
That sailed in the ditches
From the shores of the Atlantic
To the Sargasso Sea
A phantom ship goes by
King of the Caribbean
Riding through storms
That lance his sides
Inside him meet
Dark ministerial councils
The octopus is prime minister
The sky spills over with fluorine
The Holy Spirit floods the tankers
With vermilion reflections
On the stern vampire corsairs
Roast a ginger cat
And the captain inscribes signs
With astrolabes and sextants
Planning his final
Journey to the stars
Heading for the Great Bear
The North Wind leaves his teeth-marks
On the mizzen mast
The midsail flaps
Tablecloths in the morning breeze
A rayfish throws a bunch of letters
In the bubbling waters
The angry Auster strikes the rudder
And turns it, the ship traces
A curve of 360 degrees.
Its smokestack rises
Until it reaches Alpha Centauri
The wind of the Virgin Mary
Swells the cheeks of the jibs
The masts creak the ship tilts
Pursued by the shadow of its fate…
What the devil we forgot to change
The black sail with the red one
Before dry land appeared;
And now watch it, the whole landscape
Evaporates into the heavens.
Nanos Valaoritis