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HETERON PUBLICATIONS
CANAVACCIO
Cannabis in Greece
“Canavaccio/Texts on the weed of rapture” presents a short history of cannabis in Greece, reaching back when it was being legally cultivated and taxed by the state. Ranging from 1893 to 1960, a selection of newspaper articles document the widespread use of cannabis within a certain part of society, as for example inside prisons and secret dens (the presence of which had spread throughout the country), and portray cannabis users in the most defamatory way.
This edition includes photographic material taken from police archives, as well as texts on the Dutch drug policy and coffeshops, the role of cannabis in various peoples’ cultures, the Greek hashish-songs (rebetika) and their writers, the poets N. Lapathiotis and M. Papanikolaou and their relation to drugs etc. A short slang dictionary is also included.
"Because of the effects of cannabis and their overall lifestyle, its regular users develop a peculiar behavioral type, exhibiting intense external manifestations that mark their discordance with society as a whole.
A cannabis user can easily be recognized by his slow movements, the livid skin on his face, his sly and elusive eyes, as well as the loose lower lip of his mouth that makes him look weary and murky.
His voice is hoarse and when speaking he utters the words slowly, often using code expressions. Even when well dressed, his movements and style betray his secret, as he walks sluggishly, his back one-sidedly drooping and his arms hanging loose. His overall attitude is grumpy and he is always complaining about his bad luck.
In general, cannabis users avoid decent jobs and focus their creativity on crime, dispalying solidarity and gallantry towards their fellow users".
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See the Poetry-clip about this book
Yannis Goumas
The Portraits of maturity
(in Greek)
Cover design: Stratos Fountoulis
Amore - Love
The five letters of the word Amore
Inflames each finger whenever I caress you.
But I’m just visiting. I’ll have to move on.
The word Love will be a missing finger.
Wishful Thinking
As I was about to emerge
a new individual
from my mother’s womb,
if only I could have backed away
from the entire process of ending up
as souvenir of an orgasm
that expended more pleasure in a moment
than I ever felt in a lifetime.
The Bed
The bed purrs when I lie asleep.
It is discreetly silent when I lie with another.
It purrs again when I change the sheets.
Unwished Wish
Well, Mum, well Dad,
I was born as you wished;
but didn’t grow up to be what you wished.
You were the parapet and I the open space.
I lived to unwish your wish.
Now that you are both gone,
I took the clown suit to the cleaner’s.
At first I thought of dumping it into the litter bin,
but what if your wish is recyclable?
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Sotirios Pastakas
Prayers for friends
BILINGUAL EDITION (English-Greek)
Translated from the Greek by Yannis Goumas
Cover design: Stratos Fountoulis
(see the poetry-clip about this poem)
Posh bars have
small revolving doors,
unlike the common ones
where you enter from everywhere -
even through the glass partitions.
Now that we
unrepentant alcoholics,
are all scattered in the environs
and have settled
in every corner of Athens,
one in Petrálona,
the other in Glyfáda,
apostles of your word,
Mr. Nikolópoulos,
now that Constitution Square
is chockablock with tents and sheds
and the G.B. is full of scaffolds,
its door built up,
the door that only you
will open to us again
in the coming Jubilee,
since a Pope without cardinals
is unthinkable,
as is the Odyssey without companions.
Lord,
we hope for a return,
as an amputee
hopes for his amplitude,
a lover for the strength
to hate again,
a woman to do up
her bosom,
a man to recover the hairs
he lost like dreams on the pillow,
which dreams he blots out one fine day
with smoke salmon and champagne,
and for a friend to see the sun
rising again over the Aegean
from a terrace overlooking the sea.
Lord, I am sitting at the mahogany bar counter,
on my usual stool, the second
to the right of the barman,
waiting for day to break.
Once the G.B. reopens,
and Giobbe Benefactorus
allows
Constitution Square
to be filled with Albanians,
immigrants and provincials,
who will loaf about
exchanging messages on mobile phones,
reciprocating looks and experiences,
may he also allow me
to sit on my usual stool
to the left of the barroom,
drinking, smoking and thinking,
until you throw me down, O Lord.
THE ORIGIN OF AN ANT
to Irene and Mímis
Behold the stills,
ashes and cinders
of my fifty years.
By God’s grace, my steps
led me to the highlands,
there where a drop drips as long as it likes.
And I who writes only
as long as a drop drips,
once having overcome a drop,
I’ll write without thinking about it;
when instead of sliding down my throat
it’ll tickle my soles
and crawl up my legs
and even higher…
The drop drips and becomes an ant…
Every drop I drank in my life
became a tiny ant.
Lord, a drop is no longer a drop.
With a drop I could wrestle,
but not with this tiny mouse
in my sheets,
which, when I go to bed,
walks all over me,
higher and higher
on my thighs, my underbelly,
throwing me out of the blankets
and out of bed.
I could get the best
of a drop, O Lord,
I could deal with it.
Swallowing it for fifty
or so years, I thought
I could at least win on
points; but here
I saw that the machines
work non-stop; I don’t know
how many drops are produced per minute,
filling thousands of bottles
every second,
and along with all the other stills,
millions of bottles.
I didn’t know the volume of production
when in my youth I tried
to decipher
the particular bottles
in the bar; poor wretch, I didn’t know
the hosts that followed,
thus I remained alone,
deserted by all and orphaned,
breeding fleas on my chest,
mice and ants,
like prisoners.
Lord, I can’t overcome
this sudden shaking, usually
when I lift a cup
of coffee;
the head’s shaking
when I’m writing or on the phone.
The consosants keep on widening,
and most of the time
I trip over certain words.
For example, I find it impossible to pronounce
the word “programme”.
CONTENTS
SELF-LOVE or THE CAT MIRANDA (to Evi Páschou)
AN ATTEMPT AT PRAYER (to Yánnis Darsinós)
FELLOW DINERS AND FELLOW TRAVELLERS (to Yánnis Marávas)
THE WOMAN-POPLAR (to Beauty)
TRIPLE JUMP (to Thanássis Dimoúlis)
ALOE AND SAPONARIA (to Gideón Goutsoúmbas)
THE PREVALENCE OF WHITE (to Kóstas Mavroudís)
WRESTLING ROUNDS (to Panayótis Linardákis)
CAMPARI ODE (to Pános Gouryiótis)
NOSTALGIC FOR THE G.B. (to Chrístos Nikolópoulos)
MEMORIES OF BYGONE GLORY (to Marisa)
THE DAY’S FUNERAL ORATION (to Yórgos Míchos)
BLACK-AND-WHITE MUSIC, or EASTER IN ROME
(to Spíros Aravanís)
THE STREET OF SPICES (to Póppi Ganá)
FROM SANTIAGO, CHILE (to Yannis Goumas)
THE ORIGIN OF AN ANT (to Irene and Mímis)
THE COMING OF WORDS (to Eleni, to Elias)
DON QUIXOTE WITH JET LAG (to Yórgos Drandákis
UPPER PATH (to Níkos Lékkas)
TWIN BROTHERS (to Michális Papélis)
TRANSFER OF BALANCE (to Jimmy Alákias)
THE SEXES (to Dimítris Kanellópoulos)
THE LAKE OF VOULIAGMÉNI (to Vassílis Jungerman)
JOY AT DAWN (to Láskaris Roússos)