Three Kalymnian Love Songs

Of Salt and Truth


Salt is born out of the purest of
parents, the Sun and the Sea -
said Pythagoras.............

*

My love smells of the naked sea -
no cloth can mask this purity:
he'll carry it within his flesh
until he lies in earth's dim vault.

Tobacco, raki, women's breath
can leave merely a passing trace,
for deeper than the shore's warm scents
is branded brine, the taste of salt…

Our word for salt - alati,
and our word for truth - aleithia,
are as the left hand to the right;
they balance scales invisibly,
like the eyes of martyrs -
like the eyes of Saint Paraskevi -
salt and truth are our reality,
devoid of compromise…

*

My Anchor-chain


She smells of rosewater and cinnamon,
channelling deep currents of my brain
to limpid island coves, where thorny gorse
will reach out to entangle me -
breath of heaven, barbed clasp of monogamy…

O pothos! Torment of desire - a sponge
that drinks insatiably and asks for more:
this life, torn between vagabondage
and the marble threshing-floor…

Her hair, a river of black honey,
inundates her thighs, her knees;
her eyes are my demise, her arms
my anchor-chain…


*

South Wind


The wind is flirting with the sails
of windmills on the promontory,
murmuring in rock-chimneys
and crannies in a minor key,
filling the interstices, the hush
between the wash of waves
on shingle with a sotto voce,
repetitious threnody:
 
Do not refuse this voyage
to exotic subaquatic realms -
the gardens of Atlantis
lie off Cyprus, Libya or Crete,
amid the hulls of ancient vessels,
some still pointed toward Troy,
others heavy with amphorae -
come away with me…

I'll lead you to dim chasms
where the coral grows in fretted trees,
more precious than the rarest gems,
treasure of undreamt-of fathoms;
sponge-beds
where your mind sinks
in the sediment of history,
and marble arms will lure you
to harems of undulating weed…

The south wind tunes
the enigmatic impulse
to the distant journey,
maddening hard-bitten donkeys
shackled among gorse and scree.
In your dreams you'll hear the sirens
ride the winds from Santorini:
Leave your island, visions
lie in store if you will follow me -
back to my beginnings,
seas that whispered of the Ptolemies,
where consciousness sinks deep
to meet drowned nebulae and galaxies,
and oracles still speak in ancient
tongues of the sublime Aegean:
you will hear their prophecies
in frequencies of winds and waves…



*These are original poems inspired
by traditional Greek island songs
and the experience of the sponge-
diving community on Kalymnos.