The Many Methods of Moments

Clothes stacked like book pages obedient commanded coats hanging
in silent anticipation, the things you said silent uncomfortable soft
imperative the books in the closet implausible awaiting
all that there is and is not,
all
entitled

the sounds of the creaking desk chair when i sat by it
you
working so late,
hours, amounts and absolutes, I didn't know you existed,
thinking
this is how you understand a person.
then
wondering what's understanding for.

your hand reaching out for me in your sleep
its fingers warm its palm climbing over your waist to find me;
habits of
your body
all creating of love's concavity
thinking it all
so real
and then again
yet
so ready to drift
back to sleep.

Bom dia vida

bom dia minha vida,
hoje posso imaginar tudo como um deus não intervencionista,
uma felicidade mortal que adora dormir cedo,
que tem dedos fortes e palavras tranquilizadoras,
que mora nas coisas pequenas que me transportam da pessoa que era ontem a uma outra.
Hoje sinto que entre os meus sorrisos e lágrimas, posso adorar-te com todas as tuas falhas e isso faz-me rica dentro da pobreza da minha certeza.
Bom dia vida
de hoje em diante o meu desassossego aguentará
a beleza de toda a tua solidão.

Odysseas receives a text

When you are away and I need you
when I really need you
all the screens mock me.

when you are away
the only way to talk to you is memory.

"are you there when you are not there?"

trying to find a memory as convincing as your absence is trying to remember something enough to implicate the same completeness as the physical presence of you.

Like imagining of that "yes" (that you are).

when you are away I find you in the memory of my body being squeezed in your two palms on my waist in how they fit below my chest like my book in that leather cover, that speaks of you in the way it feels soft and important.

when you are away
you have the skin of words and the eyes of smiles I remember.

"There are fireplaces for clumsy people you know.Yes. They are called central heating"
the shape of that very real laughter
jumping out of a fictional you.

when you are away the reality of the things we say to each other becomes loud and aggressive
becomes sleep and tea and drinks with friends
becomes a void with its own language that knows no words
but for the thirsty despair of my every inch that you be back.

Because an attractive woman is always worth sleeping with

You can't blame him for trying.

Of course you can't. My apologies

I hadn't realised my face and my ass are

Always 

worth more

than my friendship, 

a feature of me that I have actually chosen

and that lives in my mind, 

a lesser part of the human body as it can't be slapped in public

as no man can be made to feel special for being 

chosen to enter it.

How could you have been so oblivious. 

And my apologies for not having changed for you, for not having tailored my way of 

smiling 

talking 

standing 

being 

to show I understand that that's the only thing you see.
Because I'm naive you see.

Because even when it's not,

an attractive woman is still worth more sleeping with.

Foreign Languages

Can we speak in eyes?
It'd be easier for me to speak.
Can I reply in laughter and shower steam?

Speak to me in hugs.
Then everything not understood will turn into intimacy and drip over me.

Hear me in silences.
Because the words are for everyone and you are the no one else that my mind is filled with.

Carry me in kisses.
Only the sliding of that slightly thicker bottom lip of yours on my hip can hold the weight of the million things you do to my mind.


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"Foreign Languages" earned an honorary mention at the Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry Competition (February 2016): http://sentinelquarterly.com/2016/04/foreign-languages-a-poem-by-christina-varvara-palmou/
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Línguas Estrangeiras

Podemos falar com os olhos?
Seria mais fácil para mim falar
Posso responder com riso e vapor do banho?

Fala-me com abraços
Depois todo o não-entendido transformar-se-á
em intimidade e gotejará sobre mim.

Ouve-me com silêncios
Porque as palavras são para todos e tu és
o mais ninguém de que a minha mente está cheia

Leva-me com beijos
só o deslizar do teu lábio inferior na minha anca pode suportar o peso das milhentas coisas que fazes à minha cabeça.

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Ξένες γλώσσες

Αν μιλούσαμε με τα μάτια
Θα ήταν πιο εύκολο να σου μιλήσω
Θα σου απαντούσα με χαμόγελα και ατμό που βγαίνει απ' το μπάνιο.

Μίλησε μου σε αγκαλιές,
Ετσι όλα όσα δεν καταλαβαίνονται θα γίνονται οικία
και θα κυλίσουν να με αγκαλιάσουν.

Ακουσέ με στις σιωπές,
Γιατί οι λέξεις είναι για όλους
και εσύ είσαι ο κανείς άλλος που κρατάει τη σκέψη μου.

Κράτησε με με φιλιά,
Μονο το πέρασμα των χιλιών σου στο σώμα μου μπορεί να σηκώσει
τα χίλια εκείνα που κάνεις στο μυαλό μου.

Thesis

My thesis is a kite that waits for the wind to fly while I am a short man standing in the valley of surrounded mountains on a quiet midday in July.

My thesis is a coffee drunk before I go to sleep in that I never drink coffee before I go to sleep but if I did it would keep me awake till two, full of exhausted inspiration.

And my thesis is this boy that keeps on asking you to go out so you always have to find something else to do instead. Only my thesis is that boy when that boy is friends with my friends who say I should give him a chance so we go on awkward ice-cream dates every Thursday.

My thesis is like Kesha's producer.

No matter how much abuse I get we have £24,000 worth of tuition fees binding us together.

My thesis is like beer because the idea of it seemed amazing but now it makes me fat.
Or like rum because sometimes it makes my friends intolerable when everyone's drunk on it.
And like monopoly where you start off for a hotel in Paris and end up wishing you'll get to build anything at all.

My thesis is Curt Cobain's girlfriend. He says "come as you are" and she says "something's in the way". He says "nevermind - polly " . She yells "where did you sleep last night" eventually I am sure she pushes him on drugs.

And my thesis is a literary inspiration. Proust must have had to write one when he wrote "in search of lost time".

It is what Cameron must have been going through when he fucked that pig.

which is why my thesis is a conservative. The only way it could be so confused about how austerity on my time and thoughts is actually not growth and personal development.

In rebellion
This is the Jeremy Corbyn of poems,
a cornerstone for what I d like to call the Procrastinasionism manifesto.

Prisons

Sometimes my soul shouts I'm a poet so loud
I'm afraid my skin will rip and something
real will grow out of its shredded dead body.