Vasiliki Katsarou


Norma
                after two photo collages by Ravenna Taylor

a river of gravel
a stiff gale delivered swiftly at brisk risk
hope rolled slowly into runnels

the chest is a net made of rust and iron

*

from the high shoot,
the drop into the hopper

light is a diva, a Norma
who draws her shadow cloak
about her

dimensions are misnamed
height for depth, width for wind

but hope leaves a filigree,
a hum in the branching

this century’s hatchlings
scratch a trail onto the causeway



Pith

they line the transits like ordnance
guide the cow cars
keep moving in straight lines
no matter parallel or perpendicular

peek and roll through rusting leaf piles
inedible unbounceable fodder
all rind and pith

but for the countless bitter seeds
of paleohorses



(tulips)
                after Melancholic Tulip, by André Kertész

egg on a stick
maybe baby, straight-up stalks
lean and bend to greet me

each petal a sore lip
an overturned umbrella

each blowsy bloom a mouth to utter color




Vasiliki Katsarou's poems have been published in NOON: Journal of the Short Poem (Japan), Corbel Stone Press’ Contemporary Poetry Series (U.K.), Regime Journal (Australia), otata, as well as in Poetry Daily, Tiferet: A Journal of Spiritual Literature, Wild River Review, wicked alice, La Vague Journal, and Contemporary American Voices. She is affiliated with New Jersey's Hunterdon Art Museum and the multimedia art center ArtYard. In addition to poetry, she wrote and directed an award-winning 35mm short film, Fruitlands 1843, about a Transcendentalist utopian community in Massachusetts. She is a dual Greek and U.S. citizen.
 
 
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