Greek Voices

Greek Voices

Yianni, out of work, huddled in a doorway,

Sucks the last smoke from his precious roll-up,

Feels the thin cloth of his empty pockets,

And stamps his dead-man’s shoes on the pavement,

He doesn’t want to queue for potatoes

In the open streets of Athens, or take

His wife a bundle of clothes from the church,

He doesn’t want to sit at a table

Like a monk from Athos, waiting for Easter,

So he goes to his mother, who, welcomes

Him, open arms, to her bare house, and shares

A pot of boiled greens she picked on the hill.

He returns home blasting the sweet Virgin,

Not because there is no meat on his plate,

But because his voice is all he has left,

His wife shouts back, not because there is no

Meat on her plate, (or hope of any) but

Because the sound of their voices creates

Paradise in a vacuum of silence,

They want their voices to be heard; they want

To rattle the glass of a thousand panes

©Jane Sharp 2012

In Memory of Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik, Killed in Syria, February 2012

In Memory of Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik,

Killed in Syria, February 2012

In a bunker,

Covered in grey dust,

And grazed,

Eyes glazed over with

Tears of Homs,

The battle-crack

Of Somme

Blasting history

To oblivion,

Heads clamped in palms,

Unarmed, brave,

Strands of DNA

Standing defiant,

Waiting for angels

In God’s garden,

In the slant of Spring rain,

In the same slant of Spring rain

That grows orchids.

©Jane Sharp

February 25, 2012

THE SNOWDROPS IN YOUR HAND

You held me like a newborn child,
A blanket wrapped round tight,
You asked if I was warm enough,
And would I be all right,
My eyes were closed, but I could see
The snowdrops in your hand,
The springtime change had come too soon
For us to understand

I could smell the lilies better
Than I’d ever smelled before,
And I heard your tender kisses
As I entered heaven’s door,
The springtime change had come too soon
For us to understand,
My eyes were closed, but I could see
The snowdrops in your hand,

I felt your heart burst open wide,
A tear upon my cheek,
I knew you’d come to say goodbye,
But neither one could speak
You held me like a newborn child,
Not wanting to let go,
With your arms wrapped tight around me,
To protect me from the snow,

But winter cold was all around,
And angel voices called,
I drifted into paradise,
Those peaceful, painless halls,
And when I opened wide my eyes
Upon a springtime land,
I saw you there, right by my side,
The snowdrops in your hand,

You held me like a newborn child,
A blanket wrapped round tight,
You asked if I was warm enough,
And would I be all right,
The springtime change had come too soon,
For us to understand,
My eyes were closed but I could see
The snowdrops in you hand.

Jane Sharp

TRIOLET ON THE CRESCENT MOON

Howl Turkish moon, slither of light,
Illuminate my destiny,
Stamp void with influential might.

Howl Turkish moon, slither of light,
Howl dark orb, scimitar of night,
Squinting fluence of third degree.

Howl Turkish moon, slither of light,
Illuminate my destiny.

Jane Sharp
2010

A Triolet is a 13th century poetical form.

CLOSE ENCOUTER WITH A TOAD

Shocked at the sight
Of an uninvited drain-liver
Inside,

I pulled the face of a Gargoyle
And made a loud "Ugh' noise.

He plopped over my hand
In the shadows
A good six inches.

We played that game of 'statues'
Like at school - turn away
Move.

He proved a match 'till I caught him
Mid hop in my
Mop-bucket,

Like a rubber toy I once had,
He dived upwards all slime,
Scaring me with the sudden
Rigidity of his blob-body.

I took him to the door
And put him out like Tom
For the night.

A slimy toad in the drizzle of a
Cold midnight
Jumping.

I knew he would never be
A fairytale Frog:
A handsome prince.

Jane Sharp

HAIKU ON LIFE, ON WISDOM, ON A CANDLE, ON DEATH

I am in being
Tomorrow is becoming
Now is in passing

The Papa smiles and
The wisdom of Sofia
Is in his aura

In a tiny church
I lit a candle and prayed
For those who suffer

It flickered beside
Other diminishig flames
And danced in the dark

And spent wick littered
The eternal sand-filled font
Glittering gold-leaf

The eclipse is a
Shadow at the edge of dark
Where light is dissolved

Jane Sharp
2004

OLIVE PICKING

Working in the olive grove,
Dimitri thinks only of the yield from his old roots,
This knot-knarled tree is one of his favourites,
Years of pruning has coaxed its spreading shape
Into a willow-wide bouquet of boughs,
Laden with bullet-blooms that beg release.

Now, the master stands back and admires
All that nature (with his help) has created,
And before the purging begins,
Silence.

Then, with every thwack of his katsouna,
He urges the fat, cobalt fruit to shower onto
Carefully laid collecting nets.

This hessian pack, unloading onto stone
From the wooden back of unshod Neddy,
Is filled from that great, cracked tree (a good year),
And Dimitri, we see, is pleased
As the press begins to wind, and the screw to crush
The olives.

So the scene with stubborn Herk,
In slow perambulation making work the grind,
Till mushy purple-tinted juice infuses fabric
With virgin-sweet scent,
Ali-Baba jars are brimming full of oil,
And tired Dimitri is content.

Jane Sharp
2004

THINK OF ME

When the lid of my box, outside the door,
Stands sentinel to my journeying soul,
And sunlight throws a prismic-cross across
The name plate of my chest, think then of the
Day we scrambled up the knoll through thicket
Only fit for a girded Prince to brave,
In attempt to raise his Sleeping Beauty.
And remember the apex of rock which
Gave us solitude;it was a place to
Sense parameters wider than the world.
We were drip-fed by threads of lurex-light,
Until so large had we become, and yet
So small, so much a part of the strata
That all below seemed, as from a magic
Carpet, to flow upstream, and we remained
Unseen observers perched on a warm rock.
Go there now, or top some other apogee,
And say goodbye, for I am already
Out of reach on Charon's ferry, and can
See your words unfurl like almond blossom
In the ether: soft whispered curls of sound
That becomes the hush-dance of the ocean.
And when you light a candle think of me,
Put a kiss on your fingertips and blow
It to the winds of Africa, for I
Am in each speck of the Sahara, my
Life but a memory that is flashing
Across the universe, a shooting star,
Death a mirror fractured by blinding light.

Jane Sharp
2010

ATTACK ON THE MONASTERY OF ST GEORGE, VRAHASSI, CRETE c 1770

She was on the hillside gathering greens,
Bent at the waist, head close to soft clover,
When hoof-sound made her mindful, still, and she
Crouched like an animal, afraid to move,
Then she set to sprint, but her long skirt caught
In the gauze, making her easy bounty,
Musk-soaked cotton pressed onto her warm breasts,
Freshly exposed through the rip in her blouse,
A hard Turk sealed her screams, violated
Every orifice, fucked life from her lips,
And left her for the vultures to feast on,

From a monastery not far away,
Came the hope of prayer and the promise of
A hot meal, hoof-sound made the monks mindful,
Habitual mutterings gave courage,
Switched on by the Angelus at daybreak,
They pleased God in a haze of sweet incense,
Inviting invaders to their table,

Abbot Gabriel turned towards heaven
And entertained the Turk, not knowing that
A circle of vultures clericked the sky,
Ready to gobble his flesh, drain his blood,
Tear apart his sibling’s unburied limbs,

The moon was up three times before he heard
Of his sister’s death, and berating cries
Accompanied the tolling of the bell,
Until his breath choked with venom of hate,
Until his sack-cloth soaked tears of revenge,
Till hoof-sound was the Devil at his gate,

When next the culprit clopped to rest and feed,
He did not meet with hospitality,
And whilst he tied his steaming steed, he was
At once set on, bludgeoned and boiled in oil
By raging priests, all thoughts of goodness gone,
Honeyed with justice, at damnation’s door,

At dawn they bore down for holy slaughter,
Razing the sacred home, and defacing
St George with a lead ball to the temple,
A damaged witness to torture,
Abbot Gabriel was imprisoned, hanged,
Hoof-sound muffling his call for forgiveness.

Jane Sharp
2010

SOFIA

Through no fault of her own, she was chosen,
In fact, she was minding her own business
At the time,
Involved in cleaning her own house.

I suppose it was due to that selfish moment
Whilst not keeping company with her neighbours,
Or peering from behind curtains,
That it happened.

It didn't register at first,
Ordinary things never do;
A mindless glance at her wrinkled stockings
Caused just the right angle for her vision.
Even then, it was like looking at
A piece of tissue paper on a skating rink,
Marble-white being perfect camouflage.

And in that instant, she became aware of
What it was,
And what it meant.

Looking over her shoulder she bent down
To focus on such a delicate thing,
Not exactly light enough to be air,
And yet, not rooted to the earth.

But the illumination was too bright,
And the perfect feather
White and sacred,
Seamed to dance around her feet.

She heard the absent bird call out her name,
And in her heart she knew from whence it came.

Jane Sharp
2004