I've just come across the work of the Greek poet Jenny Mastoraki (b 1949)
and wonder if any petcs have further information on her. I gather she is not
exactly unknown in Greece, but, such is the strange way of things, she
doesn't seem to be as known outside Greece as the poets of her preceding
generation.
Below's one of her pieces in translation.
Best
Dave
(untitled)
Then they paraded Pompey's urn
simply and soberly
on the backs of royal elephants.
They lifted it aboard with pulleys
in the port of Haifa,
and the stevedores still brag
how they debauched with him
down by the wharfs.
The Wooden Horse then said
no I refuse to see the press
and they said why not and he said
he knew nothing about the killing,
and anyway he himself always ate
lightly in the evenings
and once in his younger days
he'd worked as a pony on a merry-go-round.
The Crusaders
knew the Holy Places
only from postcards and tourist guides.
So, they set off
with banners, tents,
tools and sandwiches,
just like a school excursion.
One day, Baldwin's mistress
received a Polaroid snapshot
of some monument or other.
Her beau was marked with an arrow,
one among a dozen heads.
They brought it off---though it was a fluke,
to tell the truth.
The papers of the period
spoke of bloodless operations.
David Bircumshaw
Leicester, England
Home Page
A Chide's Alphabet
Painting Without Numbers
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
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