Live Encounters Poetry & Writing April 2025
In the red belly of the whale, poems by Elsa Korneti.
Translated from Greek by Don Schofield.
In the red belly of the whale
In the red belly of the whale
beneath its bony spine
the dark velvet of its tongue warms me
A whale is my cave
my safest hideaway
No one will ever find me here
alone
paying for the mistakes of others
I envy clowns
I envy clowns
They’re lucky
because in the circus
disguised
they gambol about
Their sadness slithers in silence
beneath their white masks
& sometimes is refreshed
by beads of sweat
& those painted tears
briefly illuminated
That round red nose
flashing
at every turn
absolves
their lies
Dear Sympathizers
Dear Sympathizers—
My name is Pinocchio
I’m afflicted with wood for a body
I exist in its rigidity
in a world of pliant dreams
I tolerate my unbending back
by training my supple spirit
to disregard my backbone
its sharp-edged curves
I imagine my body malleable
as I do dance moves
calisthenics
I stretch & shrink & bounce
& sometimes fling myself
high into the air
become bow string & arrow
Proud of my arced flexibility
I hit the bullseye
of a softwood target
there in the sky I nail it
right between the eyes
© 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 16 books, many of them have been distinguished.