Vasilios Theodorakis – An Online Author

theodorakis.org is a digital repository of all my written work (in text and podcast formats)…

November 3, 2010

Waiting To Know

Filed under: Ungrouped — Vasilios Theodorakis @ 9:18 pm

Standing up – arm led by the firing squad,
I’m shown a chair for my own comfort!
And as I sit – I gag on the reflex to laugh out loud
Chimpanzee like,
Trying to hide my fear.
That my response should revert to a simian Id
Is not so strange,
Knowing how similar our hand prints are.
Grimace set,
My face is taut
Till lips morph into teeth,
And I wait for the path’s division.
Left – I live,
Right – I dual with death,
Whose advance is a breech
Of the city walls
Where foreign infantry run through the streets
Of my system
Aiming for chaos but content with mayhem.
Pushing forward
Forever in assault mode,
I’m overrun
And witness the fall of my own torso.
Just as the war is lost in my head,
The verdict
From the delicate genius arrives – results are fine!
Shaking,
I sheath my body’s duelling sword.
Today,
Will not be the day,
This battle is fought!
Relief stricken,
I slump forward
And catch my head
In conveniently cupped hands.

Yet another stay of execution has been granted,
And for now – I walk free!

Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 2010

March 21, 2010

Olive Grove

Filed under: Ungrouped — Vasilios Theodorakis @ 6:00 pm

That last link to a misaligned past
We discover, was discharged long ago.
Carried out, by an underhanded swipe
At the matriarch’s resolve;
Broken down, until she could stand it no longer
And with heavy heart signed away all inheritance.

There, on the far side of the blue, we fall on our knees – dumb founded.
The trees of Gethsemane had sustained
Our blood for 100’s of years,
But like in Palestine, we were betrayed by a kiss
Whose guilt was washed away
As easily as the sandy silt, at the base of those ancient trees.
And so, we are cut free at last.
Our link to Western Crete finally broken,
As even the land now belongs to another.

But the earth does not understand these human transactions,
And awaits the return of our feet.
Longing, for the trampling of soil;
Puzzled, by where the offspring have gone;
And hoping,
For a reunion that will never come!

So how do you tell the dust of your DNA,
That the 1000 year marriage
Of rascals to rocks, chaos to creativity, mania to morals
Is finally over?
I do not know.
I only sense, that like the mythical dragon
Whose once believing children have left to become adults,
The grove is forced to wander for eternity,
As her sadness can never be eased.

Dedication (For my grandmother Maria.)
Audio Version (To Be Added)
Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 2010

November 22, 2009

Bertimou

Filed under: Ungrouped — Vasilios Theodorakis @ 10:20 am

Soon enough, we too will die
And finally meet up
With the ones who await us,
Joining them on freedom’s perch
Which juts out over the river of new life.
Sitting tall with a glimmer
Of insight in their eyes,
Our loved ones will appear and beckon
And eagerness will follow faithfully,
As together we are ushered
Into the transfigured universe,
Prepared in the absence of time’s sadness.
It is there that “death tramples death”,
And eternity takes on form
Embracing us with the smile of friendship
Clasped firmly between beaks,
And drawn forward by His Compassion
Which surrounds us in the uncreated light of tomorrow.

Dedication (For my feathered friend Bert who continues to mourn Molly, his head preener and companion.)
Audio Version (To Be Added)
Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 2009

October 15, 2009

Cruising Through Time

Filed under: Ungrouped — Vasilios Theodorakis @ 10:50 am

Saddled up
And wading out,
We all embrace – though tentatively at first,
Our golden leaf ticket,
Validated by the conductor of our birth.

Often – it takes a while
For us to realise,
That our bodies
Are the carriages,
Of nature’s own time machine.

Witnessing change first hand,
And reliving the past in our minds,
We are all experts
By the time we step off,
And hand over our ticket stubs – though reticent,

To the grinning skull,
Of the sickle bearing station master!

Audio Version (To Be Added)
Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 2009

September 23, 2009

Killing The Dandy Lion

Filed under: Ungrouped — Vasilios Theodorakis @ 11:15 am

What once feed us,
In times of famine.
Is now sought out
For slaughter;
Alongside the bindies
And clover.
Dabbed by our solvent touch,
We seek the shrivel
And death;
In search of the perfect lawn.

If this doesn’t define us,
I don’t know what does!

Dedication (In response to my wife yelling out… “Look at the dandy lions!”)
Audio Version (To Be Added)
Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 2009

August 20, 2009

The Havoc They Reeked!

Filed under: Ungrouped — Vasilios Theodorakis @ 1:35 pm

Nothing left;
Just an old man in a blue T-shirt.
Bike parked near the nets,
He taps at pollution filled oysters,
Hoping for a winning,
And done in remembrance,
Of the bountiful nutrition,
That the land
Had once bestowed on his people.

Never again,
Will it be as the ancestors knew.
For it was taken;
And in the shortest amount of time,
Crushed by the other.
Annihilating the balance
That once ruled these waters.

Everything is right;
As far as the mainstreamers
Are concerned.
But all that remains
Is the blue,
Filling up my mind,
And drowning out my heart;
Stretching ahead,
For as far as I can see.

Dedication (For Minjerribah)
Audio Version (To Be Added)
Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 2009

August 12, 2009

Did You Ever Exist?

Filed under: Ungrouped — Vasilios Theodorakis @ 6:00 pm

Face tarnished – framed in the midst of flaking silver oxide.
Long drawn, is the line
Between us and those directed dead eyes.
Forever forgotten,
Your name remains unknown
By all, but those who stood there by your side.
And now, paper death
Is made real by vacant visions,
Drinking in all that appeared
Before the camera.
Mesmerised, we look again,
But nothing can dispel the absence of life,
In those blackened sockets.
You are the thespian arbitrator
Of another time’s reality.
There, you dictated what was real
And what wasn’t,
But did you ever exist as flesh and blood?

If not for the crumbling paper
Now held in my own aging hand,
Our young would see you as vectors
Drawn from silicone etching.

Audio Version (To Be Added)
Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 2010

March 5, 2009

Everything Is OK

Filed under: Ungrouped — Vasilios Theodorakis @ 6:00 pm

The freshest air,
Arrived this morning, with welcomed relief.
Facing east
And climbing our doorstep,
I allowed it to weave back and forth over my face,
Brush away my hair,
And tug incessantly at my gardener’s shirt.
This simple event
Returned me,
Though momentarily,
To the innocence of childhood.
I knew
It could not last,
But even if it could,
Would I really want it to?
The mind of the child
Only sees the good in everything,
Even if its playground
Is a field of weeds,
Generated by the Spawn of Satan.

I now understand,
That all I saw
Were the multitudes
Of colourful flowers,
Produced by the weeds.
Never realising,
That the weeds themselves
Could rise up
And strangle the admirer,
Whose back was turned.

Yet that was then.
Today, with graying stubble
My sandy lot is cleared,
Made ready
For the growing of food.
And I finally know,
That everything is OK
As I carry my hoe upright,
Into the crisp warmth
Of the Bay’s glassy sunlight.

Audio Version (To Be Added)
Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 2009

February 8, 2009

He Made Her Cry…

Filed under: Ungrouped — Vasilios Theodorakis @ 6:00 pm

Tears falling,
Besotted with memories
Of things that could have been,
She knew
She had done nothing wrong;
Just stepped outside the line work
Brushed in pastel – that was all.
The movement of her hand
Coloured the moment,
And all rationality
Understood it was innocent enough;
But there was no sanity
In his actions.
Responses were based on triggers
Cocked by adrenaline,
Fired by falling feathers,
And forged by experiences
In a life non-disclosed.

Hope had filled
The dingy of marriage;
Cedar solid,
It pushed off from uncertainty,
Travelling north
And sometimes finding,
All it had
Between its sails,
Were her sobs
In the laundry,
His shame
At his ways.

Still, their stubbornness
Kept them afloat,
Minimising each other’s distress
And capturing each other’s strength.
Eyes locked on the horizon,
The direction
Of their negotiated compass,
Often corrected for life’s turbulence.
While the deviation
Of the field’s flickering,
Was deemed acceptable
In spite of each other’s shortcomings.

Audio Version (To Be Added)
Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 2009

December 9, 2008

Respect

Filed under: Ungrouped — Vasilios Theodorakis @ 6:00 am

In a time of upheaval,
Nothing can be saved.
My kind left behind the plates where they lay,
Took only one piece of cutlery – just a knife,
And abandoned their linen
To the moths next door.
They locked down the doors,
Boarded up the panes,
Dropped jewelery into wells
And fled into the night.
They stayed off the roads
Made for the salt spray.
And spoke the Young Turks talk,
In order to blend in with the crowds –
Crowds who had come down to see
How red the earth’s tears had turned.
Death then took them all the way
To the promised land
Where the other’s plates were now their’s to claim.
But nothing felt right.
After 86 years
Of living with a pricked conscience – hidden beneath eucalyptus,
This generational itch was resolved.
By chance,
A trip back from the other side
Found the board
Where it was placed
And the plates
Where they were laid.

When queried about this,
The Gorukle replied –
We thought you’d return.
We left everything as it was,
For you were our friends, our brothers, our sisters,
And these things were not ours to take.
It never dawned on the Christians
Who reached the promised land
To extend such a courtesy.
The Christians deserved all that was abandoned
And left nothing for the Moslems to return to –
Moving into their homes almost immediately.
And yet, to this day
My kind
Claim to be the better human beings.
Now why is that again?

Audio Version (To Be Added)
Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 2008

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