Racked Refugees to ChemseddineMarzoug

By Karine Leno Ancellin

 

Like the winged Victory of Samothrace
standingheadless uprooted in the Louvre today,
Like the ruins of Athens’ statues

 

It is the head that goes first,
the head that breaks away from the body
the head, that the erosion, of water currents cuts off.

 

Drowned refugee bodies land awash
on the beach of Tunisia, in Zarzis
a cherub body without a head, an ancient Athenian ruin, still wet.

 

In the Acropolis museum
statues have lived through centuries
without their extremities, and retained their exquisite misery

 

In the cemetery of unknown
ChemseddineMarzoug has buried
dismembered parts of subhuman hope,

Racked in the milk of human cruelty

 

------

 

iCloud

 

The algorithms are filling up the space
Where is the place where I can forget you?

 

Chem or con, you trail me...unsuspected
between the clouds, icloud, meanders with the thought of you

 

Nudging hurdles
Psychology and philosophy
Breaking aloof

 

To fly to you
a heart on cloud 9
Desire tight

 

stuffing frequencies
no hertz to flee

 

------

 

Interview with the Moon

Yes! I have, more than once in my life
suffered the pangs of lack of light,
my albedo not quite right
dark thoughts lurking
though I’m not good at emoting

 

my childhood was seldom joy filled
as my father’s rays came to me befuddled
my mother, the earth, had so much on her own
that she could not have my needs be known
So I pouted and looked the other way

 

Not at all, I don’t do it on purpose
the tides follow my trajectory, I don’t impose,
it’s just gravity, I’m only Selene, the sun is my master
his influence is twice greater
than my inordinate responsibility

 

Not to this day, but I see the useless satellites
every day, whether I’m there or out of sight,
piles of junk orbit around me.
What is to happen to all these debris?
When my proxy life ends,

 

yours will dim, dark.

 

 

 

 

 

Karine Leno Ancellin was born and grew up in New York and moved to different countrie. She worked on ‘Hybrid identities’ for her Phd at the Vrije Universiteit of Brussels. She earned an MA with Honours in Literature from the Charles V Institute of Paris VII-JUSSIEU. She works as a professor, writer and translator (English /French) and lives in Athens, Greece. While in Africa, she published articles and interviews for the WIP, Kulturissimo, Moon Magazine, Silver Stork Magazine and other media. She is now involved in the promotion of pan- Hellenic Literature. She co-founded a poetry society with Angela Lyras (www.apoetsagora.com). Some of her poems have been put into music by the Jazz composer, Leila Olivesi.