The Colossus of Poros

I wrote this little story seven years ago, after a trip to the island of Poros.


THE COLOSSUS OF POROS

My son William is six years old and
he loves Mr. Bean.

During our Christmas holidays in Greece we
took a day trip to the island of Poros.

We were walking around looking for the
supermarket and finally someone gave us the
right directions.

Close to the store they were repairing the road with
cement and part of the road was closed off by
red strips of plastic.

-Come this way, I said and
stepped deep down in fresh cement with
my size 12 runner shoes.

I felt like a fool but my son thought it
was really funny.

-Just like Mr. Bean, he said.

I managed to take a quick photo of
my footsteps, before the
road-workers filled them with cement.

William said he wants to have this
photo framed on the wall in his room.

It’s great to know that you can be a hero
for your son,
if you just try hard.

the language struggle

I'm glad I'm not trying to learn Greek, I have enough problems with my English.


ENGLISH TANAKA

He’s wearing the kind of heavy glasses
that Onassis once made famous.
I tell him, making a new English blunder,
that I have a pair at home in the kitchen
and “I have them for breakfast”.

Flying Demian

Do you see a guy swimming behind the hovercraft in the painting?

Well, the story is that the guy, let's call him Demian, visited us on the island and when we were about to take the 15 minute walk from Kamini to the next beach in Vlychos, he said it was almost as easy to swim there. Well, actually he said that he could swim there, no problem. Like he was the best swimmer on the island.

So when being questioned about this he chose to get in the water at the Kamini harbor and start to swim.

The rest of us walked to Vlychos and found a nice spot in the shade and started to look out for the great swimmer. But it really took some time; boats came, the Flying Dolphin came, waves rolled in from the boats - but no sign of Demian.

We started to worry but at last he turned up, he swam around the bend and showed up outside the cliffs. He was fairly exhausted and this was probably his longest swim ever. He lay in the shade the rest of the day.

My theory is that he swam out from Kamini, out behind the cliffs were we couldn't see him, had a smoke and listened for the next Flying Dolphin. When he heard the Dolphin, he swam out and waited and when the hydrofoil passed he grabbed hold of it at the back and got a ride over to Vlychos.

If you look at the painting again you see him there behind the hydrofoil, with his cigarette. That's how I remember this.

more gardening

Although I'm back in Stockholm I will keep
adding some Greek stuff to this blog. Here is
a new tanaka on remote gardening.


GARDEN TANAKA #2

The Mandarin tree that seemed dead
suddenly has small green shoots.
Living on extra time it's now
heading for the spring.
Once again my green fingers fooled nature.

the yacht Christina

Maybe five years ago we saw the old yacht Cristina anchored outside Hydra. The ship is now renovated and owned by a Greek shipping company that rents it out for charters. It was still a beautiful ship and below is a poem I wrote about the life on that boat.



ON BOARD THE ONASSIS YACHT


- Madame, you are now sitting on the
largest penis in the world, Onassis said.

Greta Garbo was on board the yacht Christina,
sitting on one of the bar stools covered by
white whale foreskin.

The Onassis’ yacht took Maria Callas,
Elisabeth Taylor, Greta Garbo,
Jacqueline Kennedy and the rest of the
jet set around the world and probably
they all sat on the famous bar stools.

Even if the whales that supplied the foreskin to
these bar stools had the biggest penises in the
world, they probably saw more action after
death than they did during life.

orange gift

I was invited to have dinner with a friend in his house tonight so I picked a bag of oranges to bring along. They are very sweet and delicious. To pick them I use an instrument we bought in Ermioni, on the mainland; a long stick with a basket at the end, with knife-like trimmings around the basket. It's a very complicated manoeuvre to use this picker, especially as the basket is broken and there's a large hole where the oranges fall down. But I mastered it all as you can see from this picture.

the bookstore window

I walk by Lefteris Kiafa's bookstore, the only one on this small island. It was closed in the afternoon but I was happy to see that my new text book was shown in the window. With the recent interest for this poetry form, both in the US and Australia, I think this book can sell even here on Hydra.

Taverna Tanaka

The other night I had dinner with some friends down at Matina's taverna, it's actually called Zephyros and it's is the best of the ones that are open now. It's very good.
I made a quick sketch and wrote a new tanaka.


TAVERNA TANAKA

the white wine from the barrel
in a glass carafe the size of
a football
the elderly gray couple
get their daily kicks

loulaki porta

This is the blue door to our house and the small alley leading down to the Kamini harbor. Seems like the weather will change and I look forward to the sun returning. It is a bit chilly in the morning. It will take a Swedish viking to sit outside for breakfast.

a good friend

She is one of my best friend on the island. Her name is Margarita, she lives with the Ghikas' family who runs the grocery store. She is maybe eight or nine years old and she loves it when I hold her. She can sit like that for hours, her paws baking bread and she is purring like a small machine. She is not after food like most cats, she just want to be with me. There must be something special with me.

portokalli & loulaki porta

The tree is now full of ripe oranges, and this is the right time to harvest. We picked a large plastic bag full with fruit and gave to some friends but the tree hardly noticed it.
I wrote this tanaka to celebrate the harvest.

GARDEN TANAKA

The orange tree is full of fruit
Zhanetta gave water over the summer
and in the winter we had a lot of rain
At Easter Yannis cut the branches
I am the perfect gardener

raining

It was raining all day yesterday, a good day for reading and staying inside. When I opened the door a small black/orange cat came in to the house... My wife is allergic to cats so we don't let cats in but Marie is not here now and the cat was soaking wet and I dried her somewhat and soon she was on the bed purring...hard to throw her out in the rain again...

 

dinner down in Kamini

My friend Michael invited me for dinner last night so I walked in the rain, the 200 slippery stone steps down closer to the Kamini port. I had a great meal and when I went back the rain had stopped.
Here's our dinner table.














And here is Michael describing in detail how he prepared the wonderful chicken he had picked up from the butcher in the morning.

Tanaka #1

The poet Glenn Cooper said he would tell me the principles and rules of the Tanka poem. I'm sure there are some rules I should stick to. I'm still waiting for Glenn to tell me. Seems to take a long time. I can't wait and therefore I call my five-liners Tanaka instead. I just wrote this. There could be some incredible grammatical errors in this small poem, I am waiting for the verdict.

Tanaka #1

The hens and their loud chatter
are gone. There’s no sound
at four in the morning
from the garden next door.
I miss the unsynchronized rooster.

Taverna Annita

Annita once had the Barba Dimas taverna and later also the one that Matina is now running, now she has opened up again at the place were Remetzo used to be. Remetzo closed maybe three years ago and was OK but never spectacular. It seemed like Annita had just opened and the food was maybe not like her food used to be but we'll give her a new try when she have settled. It was a nice athmosphere even with the two different nuances of green that they had put on the walls and the ceiling. The old blind man was there with his accordion, together with two guys on guitar and bozouki - it sounded just great. The accordionist's voice is really great. Here's a quick sketch of him from my moleskin notebook

New Year

Wednesday December 31st 2008

Another fine day and we take a walk in the afternoon, passing the old Taverna Kristina that is now closed again, even the restaurant that opened after Taverna Kristina closed has now stopped, only after one year. It's hard to get a taverna working on this side of the island.

We met Tom and Annie at Matina's Taverna at nine o'clock, not too many people and some great food, veal chops, lamb chops, beef stew wonderful salads, tsatziki, everything really fresh and like home cooked. The meat is probably from the island, the veal chops looked fantastic. We went back to Tom and Annie's place and had some New Year's sponge cake that Annie had made, really dry with almonds. We had a glass of champagne before we walked the stairs back to our house, longing for to go to bed. As usual we met some dressed up young people heading down to the port after having spent the evening with their families. The smell of perfume and after shave was rich in the narrow streets and everyone we met looked really happy and we all greeted each other with the Kali Kronia or Kronia Polla.

Thursday January 1st 2009

Breakfast outside in the wonderful strong sun.

We then took a walk down to the sea and walked pass the quiet Kamini harbor where many boats were up on land for the winter. A few other people out walking but it's extremely quiet.


When we get to the small Kamini beach we see that the rumors are right and they are actually building just up from the beach. The old Castello is renovated and they are turning it into a beautiful three story house, they are keeping the iron in from of the windows to keep the look of the old prison. They are building new walls around the gardens, everything done the old fashioned way with stones. It does indeed look beautiful; the view from the house is great, the sea and the small island with the old white church just outside. Not too far from the main port, just a nice walk. We are just worried about the small beach in front, the place where we and all the locals go in the afternoon to swim. And were the old Greek women go in the morning to take their bath. It still looks intact but it’s a small beach and we don’t want to see it touched by umbrellas or chairs from a pension or hotel above. Hopefully everything will be fine. If we are lucky it will be a nice taverna even if we suspect it will be too up-market for our tastes, that’s probably the only way to make this venture break even. The rumor has it it’s someone really wealthy who owns it; maybe he has a good taste and also likes a traditional taverna.