Panos Panagiotopoulos is a Greek writer whose themes range from erotica to social criticism, all dressed with free verse, text which is meant to be spoken; verses of cynical flavor but little cynicism. His poems have also been published in Carcinogenic Poetry, Orion headless, Gloom Cupboard and amphibi-us. He currently resides in Athens, Greece, and is passionate about writing and his son.
spinal tap
so bring your wings on me
make each flutter meaningful,
make it matter to yourself,
it's possible that I am one who should not
be trusted or relied on,
[no]
I am not your friend nor lover
but still, talk to me, pretend I am either
talk to me, I'm fed up with all this crying
all I read about is tears and hearts enduring
bodies under word and dot stampedes
[space]
I'm tired and I need to see
a crack, somewhere,
the foramina of days
as they press their patent grim against my skin,
[available]
the sun retreats and I'm more or less sitting
by my self,
writing radioactive verses
[for us]
on my self
I wanted to be the book you'd read one day
handed to you by a friend or lover
or sometimes both, you'd lick your fingers and
rummage through me
[lover]
because your life is the party I'm crashing
observing your guests from the coffee table
until their rude potential sits on me
so quiver and make it matter
make it meaningful, if only
to yourself
I am
I don't wish to have my name printed
on paper that ages and withers at a rhythm and pace
slower than my own.
not known or whispered from mouth to mouth in fame
not even slightly recognized by a photo, a companion to
words that have a grasp on truth
firmer than my own.
I want to be the phrase, the anecdotal quote
he reads on the door of a toilet booth,
in the back restroom of a highway bar,
somewhere, on the way to somewhere else
and as he walks out, relieved, and speaks
I am there, on the lips of the traveling man
shared and appreciated and imagined but not mentioned
by a name of my own.
I don't wish to settle on a shelf and gather the smoking ruins
of broken minds, I don't need to feel their eyes on me,
not their eyes on me, not by identity,
but I want to be the everyman who seduces a fox with red toenails,
as they both watch the sunset from the porch of a cabin
up the mountain, they watch the sunset and he whispers the phrase,
the quote that I am,
the one I call my own.
Reprocess
I am born again, when the alarm clock goes off,
I am born again and the day is a hostile womb,
made up of chrome and scrap metal.
I come forth from fire
into the icy arms of an undetermined future,
the incandescent blade of a scalpel, cutting through
the frozen limbs of every day until I'm smothered,
I'm born again each wet and cold morrow.
I ride a caterpillar to work, a stretch of wheels
and orphaned prayers,
fused into a single body of chrome and scrap metal,
the day is rust on the creases of everything perceivable;
I ride a caterpillar to work leaving trails of rust, chrome
and piles of scrap metal at the sides of the highway.
Reality looks distended through raindrops
on the windshield, red lights from cars in front,
green traffic signals, wet and wide like floodlights.
Wipers collect galaxies that settle on my windshield,
bearing an internal swirl, I am looking at the universe
forming on my windshield and my eyes,
my eyes become the colour of rain.
My eyes are rain, they follow kamikaze messengers
of heaven to where the elder clouds conspire.
Converging over cities to observe larval thoughts, words,
the short lifespan of dreams, the rise and fall of vanity,
clouds are clusters of history, thunder is the groan of
primordial myths meeting head-on over cities as
the rain falls; clouds are
history receptacles and raindrops are
stories lost or whispered too softly,
myths expressed in the tears of
could-be skyrivers.
It's raining years on our heads;
we are born into the day to best our fathers,
every day,
to climb a little higher, to go a little further,
to feel a little more and dare to realize that
it's raining years on our heads,
every day.
The day is a hostile womb,
brooding over an undetermined future and we,
we are born again each morning,
brought forth in rain
to labor under nuclei of recycled history.
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