-THE POETS SOLO

.ACT -

Its with this sadness that
I am removing from my pale body
this costume now -

It kept me company
It did me good
But now its time
to go back for one
last time
in the years of the endless hapiness

in the years of eternity in the aroma
of those summer nights filled with the burnt smell of kantili
and my Aunts; lullaby

Its time to breathe through my desires
Its time to breathe through my haunted pasts
And realize who I have become
And who I am still to become -

- Maria Garozi

Foto of the first stoop. First home, E.P.'s home on 18th Street

Friday March 19, 2010
5:30pm
I saw her seating at the stoop on 17th street and 3rd Avenue. She rarely leaves home. So, seeing her out was a suprise. Mumbling on her own.
She looked at me and said: How much I would like for the journey of my life to start all over again.Now I know who I've become. And that knowledge haunts me dearly -

I would like that as well I replied.

Would you do it all over again, she asked? Even with all that suffering? The struggle of the first years in America? All the tears missing homeland?

Garia: Yes all. All over again.

Maria: Look at us now. You and Me. Thats all Garia. Thats all thats left. We never escaped from our old self. We just escaped from Greece. Are you satisfied?

Garia: YES. I AM. AND I HAVE MORE LANDS TO GO TO,MORE TO SEE AND DO AND CREATE AND LOVE.AND I WOULD DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN THE SAME WAY - ALL THE WAY -
Go home now Maria, put some makeup and cover the shadow thats keeping you in this sadness.Why dont you see all the amazing things we have created here in America while finding our true self. Why do you only think of the sad parts? WE ARE NOT GOING BACK HOME -
The homeland is far away. We Left that.Do you miss it? Is that what's all about?

Maria: Yes....I miss it.NOT ALL of it.But I want to see for one more time again my summers at Gialtra with Kotsifas.Please take me there. I beg you. Its so lonely here now.Where did they all go?
Kotsifas? Dionysia? Aunt Nitsa? Giagia? Uncle Andrew?
I cant find them anywhere around..Even here at this stoop across of the Greek church I cant find Aunt & Giagia.Did they give up on me? They FORGOT OF ME BECAUSE I LEFT?

Thats what haunts me more. Being forgotten from my own skin.....
and upon my return one day finding lost ruins of the dear parts of a past -
The past that I left -
I will never find peace for leaving Greece and never going back-
Never -

Fernando Pessoa and Constantine P. Cavafy once boarded the same ship to America but didnt end up arriving at the destination. The ship had to return suddenly halfway back to Europe.
After that attempt, both poets wrote endless times about the Journey although they never ended up leaving their homeland. Maria Garozi left her homeland and is living that journey the poets always wrote and dreamt about. The only thing the two poets didnt know was that on the other side of the journey what was awaiting was the same exact loneliness with the one they were feeling being at home. Or, could it be that they knew and thats why they never left?

The City
You said, "I will go to another land, I will go to another sea.
Another city will be found, better than this.
Every effort of mine is condemned by fate;
and my heart is -- like a corpse -- buried.
How long in this wasteland will my mind remain.
Wherever I turn my eyes, wherever I may look
I see the black ruins of my life here,
where I spent so many years, and ruined and wasted."

New lands you will not find, you will not find other seas.
The city will follow you. You will roam the same
streets. And you will age in the same neighborhoods;
in these same houses you will grow gray.
Always you will arrive in this city. To another land -- do not hope --
there is no ship for you, there is no road.
As you have ruined your life here
in this little corner, you have destroyed it in the whole world.

Constantine P. Cavafy (1910)


- Garia August

This writing was highly influenced by the movie "The night Fernando Pessoa met Contantine Cavafy" directed by Stelios Charalampopoulos.