Something real
I am shit-scared of trying, something real
no depression, no suicide or pills
nobody to rescue me from myself
or to tie me to something else
I am terrified of something real
no chasing a guy down the street
texting or emailing so we can meet
only to fuck against floors and walls
to convince myself I’m standing tall
Ha. I’m full of shit.
I am terrified of trying, something real
describing how I feel
someone to take my hand
accept me for who I am
and we just come together
like salt and pepper
and then I hurt him
because it becomes boring
and I wind up snoring
or repeating the same story
that it didn’t work out
because I’m looking for something else
you know, because we drifted apart
and he wasn’t a bastard
loved me so much
it suffocated me
plus I’m looking for something else
I’m not sure, just something else
complete compatibility
personality wise
perfection
something like love
but not simple
like love or lust or something
you know, something in the middle
that you solve like a riddle
not what my parents had
because that was settling
that was family and simple
you go to work, you come home
you accept this is the person
you married and get on with it
raise your children
and appreciate that
LIFE IS JUST SIMPLE
no complication
LIFE IS JUST SIMPLE
No, I don’t want that
or do I? No, I don’t
I want something complicated and uncertain
to drive myself insane, so I can cry
and write lots of poems
or talk to my friends about it
to keep me on my toes
passion, oh, yes, passion
or maybe I do want stable
white picket fence
which begs the question
what the fuck am I doing?
because what I’m searching for
may not even exist
but maybe it does
I’m not sure
and all this
while my little girl
is watching, and growing
looking at me and saying, Mummy,
is this what love is, Mummy
I’m not sure what love is
Is it as complicated as what it seems
will I find the man of my dreams?
is that how you love, Mummy?
Because I found this man
but I’m not sure if I can
because he’s kind of boring
and I think I’m snoring
I want more out of life, Mum
I don’t want a simple life, Mum
I’m looking for something else
I’m not sure what, but something
you know, the same thing
that you are looking for, Mum
not something simple
I’d rather just pick my pimples
Mum, what is it you’re looking for again?
Great sex? Oh, okay, well if that’s what love is
I better start, looking.
Love of my life
Almond eyes, pale, sweet cheeks
you are looking right at me
in the photo they took
a year after the split.
Head between two monkey bars
you have a straight smile
I’m neither happy nor sad, Mum
I’m just somewhere in between.
I kiss your photo glossed cheek,
wipe away another tear…
Mum, I remember when I was three,
and we were a family, Mum
it wasn’t that long ago
but now we talk on the phone
when I’m with Daddy and I need my Mum.
I am a strong girl, Mum
I don’t smile or frown
when I fall down I just say ouch
but I don’t cry, Mum, I’m strong
but, Mum, why aren’t you and Dad together?
and you say never say never?
why can’t we live together?
if you never fight
and talk on the phone every night?
I’m a strong girl, Mummy
I have two bedrooms
and did you see my new shoes?
Yiayia and Papou got them for me
I live there too, sometimes
and I wheel a princess suitcase
every few days, but it would be better
If Mummy and Daddy were together
why, Mummy, why?
Love of my life
There is no other, in my heart
I’m miles away and I want to stay
here, away, forever
but you, love of my life
you’re on the other side
pulling me to you
my heart palpitates at noon
when it’s your bedtime
and I’m not there, to tuck you in
I want to give you everything inside
don’t want to run off and hide
all the scraps left behind
aren’t enough
Mum, hey, Mummy, Mummy
I’m happy, I’m a strong girl, like you
I haven’t cried and there’s 10 days
10 days till you come home
I’m crossing them off the calendar
but when you come home
I want us to be together
Because you know you’ll be
best friends for life,
and you won’t leave each other’s side
So Mum, Dad, loves of my life
please just tell me why, why?
Visiting Anna
I felt you today. It was strange. When I arrived at your grandmother’s street off the main road and turned the corner, I felt a great whoosh of your energy. Her name is Anna too. You were named after her. It’s strange. I can’t seem to write about you, or I can, but not in the way that I feel you deserve to be written about. Instead there are references to you in poems about sex and guys, but still no short story about you, no brilliant poems, no words worthy enough to describe you.
As I walked down the street, images of the film you made on that very street, replayed in my mind. I saw you young, and beautiful, alive, not sick, and brittle, like the scleroderma made you.
We all gathered at your grandmother’s house, your brothers from Australia, me, and another very close friend of yours, we all gathered at your grandmother’s house, for you loved her so much and the bond between you two was powerful and unique. We all gathered there and said how strange it was that we were all in Cyprus, at your grandmother’s house, at exactly the same time. Nobody said it, but we all knew you were there too.
I asked your brother if it was okay to talk about you to your grandmother, because I didn’t want to upset her, and he said it was fine. I told your grandmother what a beautiful person you were and how you changed my life, and how she should be very proud of you. It felt really nice inside to say those things to your grandmother. She’s ninety-seven years old but her mind is as sharp as an axe. She was crying but they were good tears, the ones when you need to have a cry sometimes and you let it all out then feel good later. She told me her husband died when she was 36 and when you were born she was reborn. She said all the pain in her heart went away.
She said okay to recording a poem(below). She didn’t know what I was saying and I’m not sure if she could hear me all that well because she’s a little deaf. Your brother said she’s used to having artists around her, and I know how freakie you were so I thought if she was okay with you then I’d be a walk in the park for her. (haha, kidding!)
After we had lunch and said our goodbyes, as I walked down your granny’s street on my way to the beach, my Cypriot blood was beating so strong I almost felt like it could spill out of me and onto the pavement. Your two brothers, your granny, me and your other friend, we are all Cypriots, all of us linked together by Cyprus, and I know, that with me and Cyprus, I am only, just beginning.
I am not for love
I am from the island of love
Aphrodite’s very own birthplace
but I, am not for love
There was a man, who loved me
but I couldn’t love him back
because I, am not for love
I am drawn to men
that are not for love, too
because then, they give no love
and there is no love
I fell in love, with a man
that is not for love
He does not want love
Is okay with no love
Heart turned bad
by Mum or Dad
I dreamt of his dead sister
and I never even met her
I gave him love
I tried really hard
He made me so strong
I thought I was wrong
because maybe we were for love
just me and him, together
maybe we were for love
I tried to show him love
in my broken way of love
but he didn’t know
what to do with all my pieces
because he is not for love
He made me so strong
broke my heart so many times
I could feel it no more
But it’s not his fault, I knew
He is not for love
And I, am not for love
Search my eyes
I am not for love
I prefer no love
I want myself
and nothing else
Just like him
This is my reality
This is my truth
Search my eyes
I, am not, for love
Yiayia mou(my grandmother)
The last time I was here, you were alive. I sit at a desk and write my stories with your photograph beside me and wonder if you are watching me and what you think of my stories and my poetry. Cyprus is different without you, and I am glad that I didn’t see you when you were really sick in the nursing home and that I lived with you when you were semi-well and would sit with me and tell me stories and sing songs whenever you felt like it.
I have another granny too. I am with her now in the remote villages of Cyprus, up in the mountains. 
My uncle from Pafos happened to come and visit the village while I was here. He didn’t know I was here and he hasn’t been here since Easter. I thought it a strange coincidence. I think my aunty had something to do with it but I didn’t want to say that because she has passed away and I didn’t want to upset Granny. I miss my aunty a lot here.There are lots of photos of when she was young. I like looking at them. I think she is here visiting too.
In the bedroom where I sleep there is a wardrobe and my uncle showed me that on the inside of the door, are all of their birthdays. 
Every time my Granny gave birth, she would rise from the bed and write the name and the date on the door so she would not forget.
My granny cracks chestnuts with her carer from the Sri Lanka, Rosa. She came to Cyprus two and a half years ago and knew no Greek and my Yiayia taught her Greek. Amazing! My Granny is up with the latest technology. 
She Skypes with her family all over the world. My Granny is losing her memory. She forgets how long I have been here. She can walk but only small distances so she can’t leave the house, but my granny is a busy bee. People are always dropping in to see her. My granny has chickens in her yard and we eat fresh eggs.
My granny is a poet. I didn’t know she was until six months ago, Dad said to me as a passing comment ‘ah, you’re grandmother wrote poetry too’. My family back home don’t really like that I write. They prefer I was working as a programmer which is what I studied out of highschool. But my Granny, she’s wrapt that I write. In fact, we had a chat about creative processes. 
She said that after her family fled her village when Turkey invaded, one day she had the urge to write. ‘The story came out,’ she tells me, ‘without sitting down and thinking, it just came out, and i didn’t change it, I just wrote. Then I sent it to the radio, and they read it. They’ve read it a few times. Yes, I have had poems published in newspapers as well.’ We sit and she reads me poetry and stories laced with nostalgia, lyrical poetic imagery and heartache. I wrote my first Greek poem at my granny’s house. It is written in the Cypriot dialect:
sto anathema tous
sto anathema tous
antres sto anathema
ate, re
ftiaxe thiko sou kafe
efkala tin psishi mou
e halasa tin zoi mou
skeftou ginon, skeftou touton
ate, kori
sikostou kori
htise tin zoi sou
pantrepse tin psishi sou
min perimenis kanena
kane ta ola gia sena
sto anathema tou, kori
ftaxe tin valitsa tou
oles tes skepsis tou mialou sou
kai na pan sto kalo
i valitsa tou kai aftos
sto anathema tous, kori
sto anathema
‘I will kiss you,’ she says to me before she goes to bed while I am busy at my laptop writing stories. I smile, and we exchange a kiss on both cheeks. ‘I wish you all the best with your writing,’ she says to me. ‘That you publish books and succeed in your career.’ Nobody in my family, extended or otherwise in Australia, has said that to me. I smile. ‘Thanks, Yiayia mou’.
Back from Cyprus to GIGS
October 29, 2011 at 1:55 pm (Creative commentary, Cultural writing (migrants))
Back to the land of Aussie and I have two gigs coming up that are very different. On the Monday the 7th I am performing with Nick Tsiavos(contrabass) at La Mama Poetica and the night is themed ‘Love and Fierceness’. On Friday the 11th or 11.11.11 I will be performing with Ben John Smith(Horrorsleazetrash.com). This will be similar to what we did for my book launch, a showdown of poetry to see who can be the baddest. This will be promoted in Beat Magazine with an interview(either the 2nd or the 9th edition) and on RRR aural text on the 9th. The photo shoot for the poster was conceptualised with the intention of showing the woman in power in response to the article I published on Overland literary journal, ‘Poetry or pornography’, which generated a stir amongst the academics. The photo was taken by Art of the State Filmworks, concept by Jenny Poulakos, makeup and hair by Kaliopi Malamas. It is part of a series which will be posted on Horrorsleazetrash.com before the Polyester gig.
Hope to see you there!
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