SurVision Magazine
An
international online magazine that
publishes Surrealist poetry
in English.
Issue Twelve
VERONIKI DALAKOURA
Limbo
In the sunlight, the rays amidst the clouds, father
I managed to see what surrounded even the moment.
Years later, when no one was tearing down the walls
the scream burst out; no one was there
and luckily you had built an ear in the dam;
with a mouth whose words were sculpted
by the night of birth.
Thursday
The road is closed; the dust shatters a moon that I've been shooting at for years.
On one side the cypresses and, on the other, the woman with her braided hair and cane.
Mother, with your clipped hair, sitting in your chair, you are looking at the future, a hollow tooth that chews your bread.
How to escape by breaking through the door—if there is one?
You
Luckily I managed to touch you before the oil went dry
in the fountain
luckily I spoke when it emptied out
in the way that love invents for forgetfulness.
Luckily I didn't dare repeat the words that kept
you and me alive
while you were running a comb through your hair
even before
the judgment
Translated from the Greek by John Taylor
Veroniki Dalakoura was born in Athens, where she still lives. She is the author of several volumes of poetry and prose, and also a literary critic, reviewing books in the leading Greek newspapers and journals. She has translated Spanish, English-language, and especially classic French writers and poets into Greek, including Rimbaud, Flaubert, Stendhal, Balzac, Baudelaire, and Desnos.
