Yannis Antiochou was born in Athens in 1969. He has published two collections of poetry, “Juvenile’s night cloth-sail skin” (2003) and “In his Language” ( 2005), both from Gavriilidis editions. He also translates contemporary English and American poets.

It’s raining heavily
Aphrodite’s face melts
Dyeing the Lion’s mane with that dark green
blue of mould
And the poles are reversed
To the earth’s distinct rhythm
Of tick-tock
Tick-tock
Tick-tock, tock, tock, tock
It’s raining on my house’s metal sheeting

Yesterday I was visited by the crusader
The undying haunted knight
Pathfinder of the Mediterranean
Drawing the squares of my birthday chart
With sickly appearances
For bodies that freeze on night’s threshold
For bodies that never find equilibrium
That something in desire
The eternal I WANT

“All God’s children need travelling shoes
Drive your problems from here”

After the light of God
The cradle of the Devil
And the thorns of the pyracantha
And the dark gardenias that still smell sweet

After the green
The red of halting
Of the one who goes no further
Because his way’s cigarette ran out
An extinguished butt
Blossoming firefly of his dark flower
And the constant pounding in the chest