Poems By Giorgia Stavropoulou

Giorgia Stavropoulou is a poet, writer of absurdist fiction and a former clinical psychotherapist trained in systems theory and Lacanian psychoanalysis. She was born in Athens, Greece but raised in a bilingual home in multilingual Belgium, and now lives in Southern California. Her work has appeared in City (Journal of South Asian Literature), Journey Curves Anthology 1: writers reading in Athens, Zombie-Logic, Out-of-Print magazine, Clockwise Cat and Entropy. She also holds postgraduate degrees in Anthropology, South-Asian languages and literatures and Creative Writing (Manchester Metropolitan University).

hurricanes of fire

deep

under the sleepless

black soil

of the pacific ocean

a spur

puffing itself up

ignited

by your dead heart

beating in

arrhythmic rocks

stones

dwelling in alchemical lakes

of cobalt & amphibian 

in these dead waters

aquatic flames

of frozen fire

thinking themselves more alive

like unborn placenta

they want to form a human hand

they want reach out of the dark

in black lotus movements

ploughing through pale or

nostalgic corals

picture submarines at full speed

or fighter jets circling above gigantic tremors of salt

there are warships moving full speed ahead in the pacific 

their mission?

to inspect 

dwarf suns

being born

at 36 000 under

from a womb of archaic fire

suns

accompanied by

seventy-seven underwater 

blizzards

with turquoise-lightening sparking off in murdered water

and vibrations encapsulating the whales of regret

yes it thunders 

my friend 

deep down in the pacific ocean

isn’t your floor trembling and shaking?

hasn’t water told you

how exhausted it really is?

sea salt is plotting its next step

but don't worry

just take another sip

from your cocktail

at manhattan beach

while you still can

because

at your horizon

the polymorph perverse

hurricanes of fire began their ritual eruption

swallowing the disheveled pigeons of desire 

blurring the neat divisions

between above and below

you know

monsieur 

there’s a demon

inside you

waiting

to rearrange  

your plastic organs 

only $2.50 

india

an ant colony of shades of brown

in banaras

at the shores of the holy ganges

where corpses are crisp

and human ashes are mistaken for the heavens

an american breakfast is only $2.50

the view you get for free

bon appetite

no need to tip 

in black city’s invisible auschwitz

in black city’s

invisible auschwitz

i meet the angel of death

about to execute jazz music

my eyelashes adorned

with electroshocks

and my legs open:

clitoris erect

i sit like a real man

my corpse marching  

on whole notes

and half notes

when prison guards

mechanically

behead themselves

with samurai swords

and sound waves

attach themselves

onto my silicon skin

like termites

wriggling melodically

into my pubic hair

when my liver

escorts improvisation

to resurrect itself

when that happens

mermaids armed with condoms

and automatic rifles

will swim through the soft music

of city lights

staring at burning butchers

and all suns will

hold their breath

while the color red

sets foot again

in black buildings

and giant spiders

will menstruate on my hands

female robots

will burst out

in loud laughter

their silver teeth dancing

in bordeaux blue ecstasy

(hysteria gone overboard)

till the butchers

are finally buried

then the sirens will

piss out of joy

on their graves

and bob kaufman

will recite seven of

his jail poems

in black city’s

invisible auschwitz