Petros Tourikis holds a Master’s degree in Ancient History and in his spare time enjoys writing about Greece, both old and new. Petros lives and works in Munich.
On mirrored shores of sand
I spy wild-eyed Medea,
cloaked in death and charm,
resplendent in her beautiful ruin,
blameless as the quivering mountains
that watched her oath undone.
She moves among the wreckage of desire,
her hands bloodied with memory,
her eyes lost to mercy.
The sea remembers what she cast away.
Children, faith, the gold of the fleece
and the slow unbinding of her name.
In Medea’s net I dream,
the cracked shell and shining shard
of her spirit unclean,
alone with the bones of old companions,
their laughter thinned by salt and time.
On the shore,
the murderess gaily lingers,
a saint of exile,
whispering to the waves
that bore her home.
In the Rooms of The Glyptothek
In the rooms of the Glyptothek
I fancy myself in the
face of the Munich King,
a handsome virility I bring,
not like the satyr, that lazy whelp
drowsing beneath the vine.
In fresh-faced youths I see my past
as I once was,
unblemished, bright, pleasing to the eye,
yet eager to trade beauty for lie,
to turn a glance to currency
and call it art.
But marble cracks with memory.
The sculptor renders
poor Marsyas’ flayed despair,
his open mouth a wound of air,
music unmade by pride,
flesh denied its dream of permanence.
The gods are not alone.
Unlike them, obscure as Metrodor I stand,
a figure half-known, half-finished,
one shoulder set, one loosened hand,
my weight tipping from its measured grace,
a man adrift in contrapposto,
poised in perpetual collapse.
Poetry in this post: © Petros Tourikis
Published with the permission of Petros Tourikis