LONG LISTED FOR THE 2023 GRIFFIN POETRY AWARDS
Current Affairs
All events continued with small variations, the epidemic
kept on spreading
confusing news releases, we didn’t know who they
excluded,
saints were scared they had found refuge in calendars
scarecrows wouldn’t take off their hats when the train
passed,
huge membranes appeared under the women’s armpits
they’d snuggle on the furniture each evening and during
the night the bread rose as if boasting
about its future victims; I chatted, in my room, with old
biographies and unbelievable voyages which lulled me
to sleep but not without tiredness or I’d throw some
sugar to the flies
since they too had forgotten the game and, at dawn,
I made disguised signals to the butcher since the day
they called me a pig;
rushed good deeds like crimes, poor trades profitable to
the poets
and number 2, the twelve year girl who used to look at
the ground now sleeps with notary public clerks.
And, oh sleep, popular counterfeiting, so we can
interact in daylight.
Mayanaam
vequinox
Manolis 