I’m going to Cyprus!
Let me begin this exciting post with poem, published a few months ago in Southern sun, Aegean Light: poetry by second generation Greek-Australians. This collection of stunning poetry is available from Readings and collected works bookshops.
Cyprus
On the Broadie train
from the burbs to the city,
sometimes my mind dives
into Mediterranean waters.
It travels with a suitcase
of unfulfilled dreams
to my mythical island
with a broken heart
of barbed wire.
If I close my eyes
I can almost feel
Yiayia’s* embrace
and
Mediterranean sun.
I can almost taste
sweet cherries
and juicy kleftiko*.
I can almost see
Protaras beach
and windsurfers.
I can almost reach
for my innocence.
I can almost reach
Kerinyia*
I can almost hear
the screams
of 1974
*Yiayia – grandmother
*kleftiko – literally, ‘stolen’; refers to an oven-baked lamb dish made, according to legend, with a lamb stolen from a flock as it grazed on a hillside.
* Kerinyia – a coastal town in northern Cyprus illegally occupied by Turkey since 1974
It’s with much excitement that I announce my upcoming trip to Cyprus from mid September to mid October to finish the Cyprus part of my novel, Misplaced. One quarter of my novel is set in Cyprus and I have decided to invest in my novel and have committed to finishing by mid 2012. I may possibly be doing a small performance in Cyprus of my poetry also, but this is yet to be confirmed. Watch this space and I will post it here if I do.
If you are interested in helping fund my trip, you can help by buying a copy of my poetry chap book ‘Love and Fuck Poems’. You can buy it at my trendy stockists(click the link for a list) and online at the coolest of them all, Polyester Books. I hope to post some of my experiences from Cyprus on my blog here so stay turned for that also. Thanks!
