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).
Giorgia Stavropoulou
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
