Maria Mistroti (Greece): Selected Poems

Wind and Navigator

''We sat down and the wind and the helms man made straight the course''

[ Odyssey, l, verse 10-11 }

The sea is not always calm

The ship is not always strong

Deep wound what we love

***

The horizons of the least light I detect

The long journey of dangers I continue

The night has moved on...

***

Maybe

someday we will talk

about trains which did not leave letters

about ships which lost the desire for return

Or even

about the young night watchman

who insists on whistling

when the dusk loots the day

***

We stayed for nights

in the country of Phaeacians

in suspicions of light

we searched shapes of lonely shapes

Now, where will you find me

to take your silence in my veins

IN THE VEINS OF TIME -Excerpt-

In Ionia you sang Homer

you collected sky in your veins

a gift for Metapontum,Croton and Syracuse

Two and half thousand years later

you count the deadlocks

of the city that loots you

***

There are times that I think

the trains of night have never existed

The ones which have ignored

the small stations, the desperate signals

and the night watchmen with the bent shoulders

as I also think

that perhaps we have never traveled together

from Ionia to Taranto and Croton.

***

In the pages of history

I spell your will

your conjecture and your passion

I seek the levers and the causality

The light sleeps deeply

in the hands of the night

Maria Mistrioti

Greece

Maria Mistrioti is a Greek poetess, who lives in Chalkida of Evia, Greece.

She is mainly inspired by the Homeric Odyssey. She has published many poetry collections and some literary studies. She is included in Greek and foreign anthologies and her poems have been translated in many languages. Maria Mistrioti was awarded with special Greek and International Literary Prizes, like the HOMER & IANICIUS International and the State Prize –Medal and Special diploma by the Polish Ministry- Of the Culture Prizes-. She is an Organizer of International Poetry Festivals in Greece.

Maria Mistrioti, Greece