Download PDF Here 13th Anniversary
Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume Four December 2022.
The Daemons of Nature, poems by Elsa Korneti.
The era of impious omnipotence
There was a time, once,
when man had reason to fear
like the daemons of nature,
winged dragons,
the fairies, the elves of the forest
and all the other eccentric creatures
who jumped about
untamed and lively in its/his darkness.
At that time
he didn’t think himself
invincible and dominant over the world,
he didn’t intentionally wound Nature
because he had something to fear.
Until man
passed fatefully into the era
of impious omnipotence
when the moron believed
that technology
and his beloved machines
shall become
an umbrella
for heavy metal rain
a rescue boat
for nuclear floods
a helmet
for radiation
from a hole
that gapes in the sky
and singes
his brains.
The totems of the cities
He escaped
Behind him
wooden men
fixed in cement
hard, unbending, and settled
Every one of them nailed down
into the belly of the city
No Manitou with clear water
would bless them with rain
even as around them there stood
magicians, dancers, jesters in their numbers
They know how to seesaw in the wind
given the opportunity
Every day
to lose a Heaven on the way down
Every night
to gain a Hell on the way up
The bird-man
Escaped
His ever-moving wooden legs
Became autonomous too
He left them behind
to run
in the other direction
The Guardian of Time
It’s not a broken alarm clock
that rings breathlessly every minute
it’s a man
trapped inside the guts of the computers
indifferent, greedy, self-destructive
who plods on mechanically
Eventually he will unburden himself of his clock
and throw it into the void like a piece of rubbish
when the hand from which he hangs
points vertical
I had told you
Our clock
is so small now
we can no longer fit into it
because time stops here
in the desert of the rose
Lend me a gearwheel
and I promise you
that I will function
responsibly and dependably
– inflating the poor lungs of the earth –
with weighted breaths
winding up again
lost time
© Elsa Korneti
Elsa Korneti was born in Munich, Germany, but raised in Greece. After her studies in Finance in Greece and in Germany, she worked as a journalist. Collaborating with literary magazines she publishes poems, essays, book reviews, translations, short stories.
Her poems and short stories have appeared in numerous well-known literary magazines. Part of her work among all books have been translated and published in foreign anthologies and literary magazines in ten European languages and Chinese.
She has published 15 books, among them 11 of poetry collections and compositions. Three of her poetry collections have been distinguished: “Α bouquet of fish bones” (2009) and the “Tin Pearl” (2011) both nominated for the National Award of Poetry. She has been awarded “George Karter” prize for her poetry collection “Normal People with a plum and a brindled tail” (2014). Her recent books are in poetry: “Wooden Nose Turned” (2021) Saixpirikon Edition, “The hero is falling” (2021) Ekdoseis ton Filon. In prose her recent book is “The Fish on the Island and other imaginative stories” (2020) Melani Edition.