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  • Writer's pictureNeon Mariposa Magazine

Four Poems Christina Strigas

Let the Clouds Speak


Love can be so cruel to eight-year-old girls

who remember every cut their parents sliced.

Funeral cake with bloody confetti;

unintentional, conditional

paraphrased love.

To be balanced on one foot,

until we all fall over.


In forty years,

So much can affect you


The moon is full tonight.

Let the clouds speak why they feel hidden

under such a magnificent moon.

What can they say to each other,

in a language of lovers

only we comprehend?

Your death has letters of your name

you would not imagine,

how your syllables inhabit my soul.


You can never read my poems with a

magnifying glass or a broken telescope.

Your name is my password

Four hidden letters

of earth.


I was eight and now I’m not.

Parents make you almost human.





Going Under


Keep me alive with blood transfusions

from heaven,

filled with harmony and honest words.

from the surface

I emerge an exhausted sea,

swimming in Aphrodite wisdom

like a quarrel between our mythologies,

as Greek Gods

bask in my altercation.

In this dispute between invisible and ancient worlds;

in drastic circumstances,

under floods,

vodka, love and Metaxa — wasted slow time,

when death started to agree with me,

when death giggled then became a refugee

a shot of alcohol drank up my sanity.




Tumble


Statuesque as a supermodel

or as buff as a bearded hipster,

everything you love

hard

dearly

can and will break, tumble—

Like ice into glass.


Or like ornaments on plastic firs

like empires

Amazon trees

a bra before sex

bitter bedroom

blackout blinds,

dead front lawn

with no green gardens.


Mediterranean sheets

with old and idolized secrets—

Dreams never whispered

or devoured,

complete loneliness bearing

no comedy breaks,


Seasons lie stirred inside

brimmed glasses with cracks,

frigid hard mouthed,

I am depleted;

abandoned by the half-truth

clockworks.





Cape Cod


If you cannot find their addresses,

Roll them inside Metaxa bottles.

Drive to the brim of the ocean-

Cape Cod when rising water

Feels as freezing as an icy

Tundra. Wrap them up in

Pretty silk bows of blue.

Find recycled seashells,

the ones never meant

For any storybooks

Filled with poetry,

That only ghosts

In our separate

Underworlds

Can marvel,

Then read

Aloud.





Christina Strigas is a trilingual poet, raised by Greek immigrants, and has written three poetry books. Her latest, Love &Vodka, has been featured by CBC Books in, “Your Ultimate Canadian Poetry List: 68 Poetry Collections Recommended by you.”


Her fourth upcoming poetry book, Love & Metaxa, will be published by Unsolicited Press

in2021.


In her spare time, Christina enjoys foreign cinema, reading the classics, and cooking traditional Greek recipes that have been handed down from her grandmother.


Twitter: @christinastriga

Instagram : @c.strigas_sexyasspoet

Facebook: Christina Strigas Author

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