LONG LISTED FOR THE 2023 GRIFFIN POETRY AWARDS
Pointless Gunshots
I of course have reasons for being so fast in the narrating
future events, but Lord, why do I hate myself? What
did I forget or what I had to remember? I questioned and
perhaps I could find it if those flies on the glass didn’t
steal my attention; then I looked beyond the overcoats
of those in the hallway where Kalashnikov stood; he was
cold, I put more blankets on him, “I don’t hear the doorbell”
he says to me, “you’ll see how quiet I am”, I say to him and
to make him feel better I played, as I did in the past,
mother’s old corset like an accordion; yet since
I wasn’t in the present time I had a foreign mask which
made it hard for me to chew especially when I chewed
my fingers (old habit since our days in the country side)
and as I’m by nature compassionate I went and knocked on
the door again, “but what on earth do you want”, they ask me,
“to forget, but I can’t”, I said to them since happiness,
my friends, is a secondary matter and a crazy man is also
welcomed only when he loses; then I sped up my steps
and turning the corner; but where was I going?
Besides, it was late, evening was imminent and the last
gunshots were heard in the distance: the white and
the red besieged Odessa which didn’t exist.
Libros Libertad 