Poem

Kiki Dimoula

Side by side

Cartoon

I have to remember that packet of Camel
The camel that tonight is a guarantee
Of my attested insecurity

Maria Kyrtzaki, The Woman with the Flock

Are you still smoking those? Try Camel.

Not that I’m advertising some new tar
that removes death’s difficult stains
nor that I still believe in the different
taste of the untried, in its new strength.
Every kiss exchanged between the old sensual
habit and each new gigolo smoke
is quick-burning.
A slower blend of love has not been found.

Camel because
however well you’ve managed till now
alone on foot to advance the wilderness
following of all its myriad paths
the difficult one that brings you to the exclusion
of all travel companions

now as you see the climate has rebelled
the sand rose up became a storm
the cargo of time you bear became harsher
lead drenched as it was by the rain of fast numbers.

You wish the ozone were to blame, that the soul’s
black hole had grown overly big
you wish your sterilising of dreams had failed
so they wouldn’t bear any others
now you’re wrestling, groaning, shrieking
just as a dream shrieks that despite the sterilisation
bears for you the dream of a companion.

Accept then humiliation’s admonitions
and climb on the camel’s hump opportunity
offered you by that passing nicotine fellah.

Climb up, admit it
partner fears have entered your self-sufficiency
(just the other day you were seen with company
in sunstroke’s mirror).

Let’s not fool ourselves my likeness.
Only the futile is self-sufficient.

From: A minute´s licence, Mondo Greco 2 p. 38-41
Publisher: Wire Press, Boston, 1999