Μικρή βρόχινη

Κάποιες φορές

όταν βλέπω

τη βροχή

να χτυπά μ' αστραπές

και να φωτίζει

στεριές αντικρυστές•

σκέφτομαι πως

κάτω από τα υπόστεγα

δε στεκόμαστε

για να μη βραχούμε•

αλλά για να

αποφύγουμε

κάποιο παρελθόν.

10 Ιουλίου 2019,

Σαμοθράκη.

Φωτογραφία: κεραυνός χτυπά έναντι της Σαμοθράκης (Βαράδες), πιθανώς την Αλεξανδρούπολη• απόγευμα 10ης Ιουλίου 2019.

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Έγκλημα στη Σαμοθράκη

Συγκλονιστικές είναι οι εξελίξεις σχετικά με το μέχρι στιγμής ανεξιχνίαστο έγκλημα στη Σαμοθράκη. Η σωρός του Μολδαβού επιχειρηματία βρέθηκε τελικά σε δύσβατο κομμάτι του βράχου Βρυχού, περιφερειακά του οικισμού της Χώρας. Η αστυνομία κάνει λόγο για δολοφονία, αλλά δεν έχει δώσει προς το παρόν λεπτομέρειες για τυχόν υπόπτους ή για τον τρόπο που αφαιρέθηκε η ζωή του θύματος! Ρίγος στην τοπική κοινωνία εν μέσω καλοκαιριού! Θα επιστρέψουμε κοντά σας μόλις έχουμε νεώτερα... Ο αστυνόμος Μακρής έκλεισε το ραδιόφωνο με αργές, σχεδόν θεατρικές κινήσεις. Όχι πως ήταν λάτρης του σανιδιού · μάλλον το αντίθετο. Τον επιβράδυνε περισσότερο η σκέψη της τελευταίας φράσης που άκουσε. Θα επιστρέψουμε κοντά σας μόλις έχουμε νεώτερα... Ήξερε τι σήμαινε αυτό. Το τηλέφωνο θα χτυπούσε σύντομα. Στην Αλεξανδρούπολη επικρατούσε πνιγηρή ζέστη. Ο απογευματινός παραλιακός περίπατος περισσότερο είχε αυξήσει παρά ανακουφίσει τη δυσφορία που ήδη ένιωθε. Βέβαια δεν ήταν μόνο ο καιρός. Στην πρα...

Μετά τα μεσάνυχτα

Κι αν έρθει το φως αργότερα απ' το ξημέρωμα αν έρθει το φως και δεν είσαι εσύ μαζί του, τι φως σκοτεινό θα είναι αυτό; Γενάρης 2025, Αθήνα. Φωτογραφία: Σπιανάδα, Κέρκυρα, Δεκέμβρης 2024.

Safe place

What it feels like to watch the ferry sail from ashore an island remote urged to absorb and write about all; the smallness of the houses the vastness of the stars the firmness of the mountain and the thriving sun the stove warmth the cricket songs the raven flights the goat bells from within the heights; what it is like looking for the winter in the uncanny light of the dusk and wanting to stop, eat up the day, and again start. Once, I walked at night in the dark crossing the ancient forest and ever since I walk, the forest every night. Samothraki, November 2024.

Solace

The city swirls and swirls undoing itself, in all the ways possible. From this side, the sun warms the skin differently and as I walk deeper in the gardens I am not sure what year I find myself in, or if it matters. I borrow someone else's face as I am allowed and I am confidently another, or maybe many at once, while the square circles me and around me; the only thing that makes sense in the moment. The trees have stored the memory of you, their roots absorbing the pace of your walk, their leaves reflecting your, likewise, many faces. A woman who resembles me stares from the surface of a pond sprouting next to my feet; and she also looks like you, the many versions of you that are all me now. Tavistock square, London, 25 April 2025.

Composition

I Irregular images go by quite naturally. II A pull deep inside the wave plunges before the shore. III A procession of doors shutting firmly behind me. IV A further pull the water mumbles far from the shore. V Gardens how in their beauty spread in front of me. VI Hooded crows paired in the skies time-travellers alike. VII Stairs beneath my feet rise in rambling buildings. VIII A single white feather by the wind carried across horizon deep. IX The train with all its nine coaches drags in tunnels stoically. X Sky creatures bizarrely by me undisturbed in the same sea. XI Words of use written or spoken lavishly, kindly. XII Thick shadows of the olive trees for a moment still unnaturally. XIII In a bookstore’s poetry section we speak for ten minutes then never again. XIV All the sounds finally surrender to the eyes’ silence. Summer 2024, London – Samothraki. Picture: Tavist...

Μικρό καλοκαίρι

Ι Η υγρασία της θάλασσας σκεπάζει τη στεριά αντικριστά και μπαίνει μέσα μου. (Βρέχει ανεπαρκώς.) ΙΙ Τα δρομολόγια των πλοίων φεύγουν κανονικά μα δεν επιστρέφουν πια. ΙΙΙ Ο βραδινός ουρανός διαστέλλεται το ίδιο και η κόρη του ματιού · κάθε νύχτα ο ορίζοντας τρώει λίγο ακόμα από τη στεριά και κάθε ξημέρωμα η θάλασσα μας έχει κυκλώσει λίγο περισσότερο. IV Βουλιάζουμε. Σεπτέμβριος 2024, Σαμοθράκη.

Στοές

Μια σπάνια παχύρρευστη ησυχία κουτρουβαλά τα σκαλιά της παλιάς πόλης · σα μουσική που δεν ακούστηκε ποτέ. Μόλις τελειώσουν οι γιορτές και πήξει το σκοτάδι θα πέσουμε στη χειμερία μας νάρκη. Και θα βλέπω πάλι σκιές γνώριμες να ξεπροβάλλουν από υπόγειες διαδρομές, και να χάνονται πάλι μέσα τους. “ Δε φταίει ο χειμώνας. Φταίει ότι στο τέλος του έχουμε ήδη μεγαλώσει.”* Κέρκυρα, Γενάρης 2025. * Ευριπίδης Κλεόπας, Ατέρμονη θάλασσα (2020), εκδ. Μελάνι.

The desert island of Samothraki

Samothraki, a remote island in Northeastern Greece... 3 days without electricity as a result of the supply station in the mainland across having been damaged by the fires blazing across the East Macedonia &Thrace Region (now known to be the largest wildfire recorded on European soil in years). There used to be an independent electric station on the island which 20 years ago was closed down on the grounds of the island's population reducing. Since then, the electric supply on the island has deteriorated. Evidently, it is harder for people to remain or move to an island were electricity is not a given. See how the circle goes? 3 days with restricted access to telecommunications due to the local antennas being electrically powered. On the first day, large parts of the island had no access to water due to water pumps being electrically powered. On the first day, and while Samothraki had been for days on Amber alert for fire hazard, the sole ferry connecting t...

From Katrina to Samothraki: Another Deluge.

The Chóra of Samothraki two years ago, on Tuesday 20 October 2015. It was two years ago that I was arriving in Samothraki, no longer a tourist but in preparation for my PhD fieldwork application. It was the same days as this year’s floods that I, ambitious and with a questioning spirit, was stepping foot on the island, just two years ago. Two years following those first days everything is so different. Pictures depict a landscape all the sudden alienated, a stranger. Questions bear no longer their fruitful character, but instead awake nightmares. Words do not flow; and experience is a repetitious limbo stuck in mind. Walking amongst the debris and mud last week, in the aftermath of the pouring rain and squall, I could not raise my hands, hold the camera steadily and take pictures. Who would like to remember this anyway? Who would possibly like to store and return to such pictures in time? Four years ago, while taking a semester of my BA course in Social Anthropo...

Greens and mud: embodiment and trauma.

Picked up greens, 31 October 2017. One of the legendary ethnographic descriptions I had read at my undergraduate time in Anthropology was – and will forever be – Nadia C. Seremetakis’ description of picking up greens from the field during her research period in Mani (Greece). I am recalling it from memory, being now in my own field and having my copy back home in Athens. She went out to the field and started cutting greens herself. A villager passed by and asked whether her mother (or grandmother, cannot recall this properly) had shown her how to do it. Momentarily she waved and answer yes. Then, she halted and thought that, as a matter of fact, she had never picked up greens before. How did she know which ones to pick and which ones not, and how? It is a fortunate coincidence not to have my copy of The Senses Still (1996 ) with me. Had I brought it to Samothraki, it would have probably been ‘adorned’ with muddy water when the deluge took place , just like my o...

Poetic Movements

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