The sharpened nails
support the restoration of our infidelity.
The atrophic clouds
abhor the daughter of the sun
and gallop away horrified and helpless.
The time is closing in.
The kiss was a betrayal.
The denial was a peal of thunder.
“Oh, my Sweet Spring.”
The uplifting and metastasis of the mother.
Yes, Lord,
The time is closing in.
Our sins have diminished,
My Lord,
in the days that the innocent crucified
are just numbers within trenches.
Mother rips her breasts apart
and bewails.
She is the only worthy of bearing your Cross.
The time is closing in.
Here I am,
Lord.
Your magnanimity is my garment.
With my unworthy tears
I worship your sacrifice.
The time is closing in.
The anticipation of the Resurrection
is closing in, my God.
Poem by Voula Memou
About the Poet
Paraskevi (Voula) Memou is a film director. She was born and raised in Kalavryta, in the north of the Peloponnese. She is a graduate from the Stavrakos School of Directing and in her career she collaborated with several famous actors and singers. In 1984 and 1985 her poems were published in Hydria and Ostraka magazines. Her first directorial work was the short film ‘ALTAMIRA’ and on the State TV Channel, she collaborated on children’s entertainment shows and directed ecological documentaries, while she also collaborated as a chronographer in local newspapers, and did radio shows for Radio Aigio. The film based on her poetry, entitled ‘The Great Power of the Sea’, was shot in 2008. She also collaborated as a news journalist with many newspapers in the Peloponnese. In 1985 her first collection of poems entitled “Traversing” came out. In 2006 she published a book with news articles, entitled “Living Speechlessly”. Her poems have been published in many anthologies and the Greek Literary encyclopedia HARRY PATSI hosts her poems. Her collection of poems entitled ‘Upon Andromeda’s Rock’ came out in 2018. The collection of poems entitled ‘Behold the Man” came out a year later, in 2019. She has won numerous awards in international competitions. In the latest edition of the Nosside World Poetry Prize – Nosside World Poetry Prize, in 2019, one of her poems, entitled ‘Supplicants of the Gods of the Poor’, translated into Italian by Giorgia Karvounaki, was awarded a prize. In 2021 her fourth poetry collection was published in Greek entitled Unruly Words. She is a member of the Board of the Panhellenic Association of Litterateurs.
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