Alexis Lykiard
By Souda Bay
Unfinished business, blocks of concrete
offering, bunched at corners,
their inevitable iron
bouquets. It seems these
rusty sprigs are ruins-in-progress,
eyesores passersby may read
now as ‘Notice of Intent’,
with every spiky missive
meant to send a certain
signal for the future.
Villas, eventually, await
rubble-free floor or ultimate flat roof,
homes not yet prepared to rise
to their projected heights... Tomorrow,
avrio. Some hope. Nearby apartments though,
sprout also solar panels. Here again
grows bougainvillaea. And whenever peace
is next disturbed, via voices raising Cain,
haughty Teutonic parodies,
loud tenors that demand but do not seek
direction/ sustenance/ relief -
then so be it. Everything is subject
to change, the hollow conquerors too,
raw Herrenvolk oblivious of how
their own crude forebears could once wreck
harbour, house or life itself - atrocities
visited upon a poor, proud land.
Invariably, invaders pass: more thoughtful folk give
Crete due credit, lend help, make amends
with holidays well-spent. The hard-pressed islander
will build at all events, live and let live,
extend to wanderers an ancient welcome.
I’m back in love with the forgiving Greeks,
stoics who seldom curse their lot. My longlost
countrymen whose kind simplicity can move
even a tourist and the far too reticent
and greying stranger I’ve become.
Alexis Lykiard was educated at an English private school called Radley. His most recent book is Selected Poems 1956-96(Salzburg). His latest prose work is Jean Rhys Revisited (Stride 2000).
Page(s) 51
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The