Siren Cities by Voula Mega

Status: Draft 1995

ATHENS

The Caryatid City

Apollon and Dionysos and Light

and an altar to venerate the unknown God

among pediments, condominia and friezes.

Excessive city, plethoric, magnanimous,

full of headless statues and silent columns,

ruined marbles and ruling constructions.

Ionian measure and discipline have

here been born and died.

The doric word and the corinthian world.

City at the destiny of a Caryatid

with a lure-shaped face on a violin-shaped back

and the 'nefos' to crown exile and threat.

BANGKOK

The Smile of the Fifth Tiger

A smile can bridge everything,

the sacred and the profane,

angels and cars,

enlightenment and misery.

A smile can bridge purity and corruption,

rubber, coconut and high-tech,

wood and glass and steel,

earthy glory and heavenly peace.

A lotus-bud shaped smile,

with 108 auspicious signs,

an emerald and jade smile,

shining on shrines and slums.

A smile can bridge everything,

an ethereal smile

and eternal bliss.

BERLIN

Still Divided

The past is dead and buried

and the future is not yet born

an invisible wall presses the matrix,

an intangible bridge lags the heart.

A new constellation appears

from a solar explosion,

The new stars of a wrapped Rathaus.

The light doesn't leave any trace or stain.

The new Nefertitit has to have

the perfection of all cities,

projected with graffiti

on the Wall.

Illuminated angels climb up

the noble stairs of the French church

in a dignified Academia Platz

and seed the future.

BOSTON

Nestor

The Hancock tower inclines

at the shadow of Cambridge

and the cult of knowledge,

only non-depletable resource.

Athens became Zurich and yet Boston

Tender planning is still the rule

on the cherry Beacon Hill.

Poets are always right.

Memorial drives on emerald necklaces,

idyllic dialectics like kites,

schools into good configurations

and feelings that have to excercise.

The river Charles rows,

alert and conscious,

for the harvest of the future,

Boston, like standing at the edge of a vision.

DUBLIN

Aeolus

A city born out of tides and tempests

for wanderers, dreamers and fighters,

rich in its poverty, unique and universal.

It has neither olive nor pine trees,

but thousands of daffodils welcome the spring

and salmons and sea trouts announce the summer.

A half-penny bridge to reach useless utopias

Martello towers to defend from anything,

if not popular rows and half-moon crescents.

From the summit of the Killiney Hill,

one can perceive the whole city,

crowned with cloud jewesls.

And within a bright rainbow,

all cities sail

at the pace of the World.

HELSINKI

At the same longitude

It is shaped by Sibelius and Kivi,

it is sculptured by Aalto,

fair islands and enchanted winds,

and an arcipelago of arctic tears.

It stands in equilibrium between day and night,

equinox and solstice, summer and winter,

immense forests and endless lakes,

crystal and illusion.

The Esplanade is full of sounds,

from fishes and birds

and full of silence,

from evening glows of candles.

Sea nymphs confound titans,

winter nights drink alcohol,

isolation commits suicide

and a neoclassic frieze looks again for balance

IOANNINA

Symphony in Rain Maggiore.

Lake, impatience and absolute,

and poems published by the wind,

a wonderful publisher.

The boundaries of the mountain lines

seem intangible in the morning dew.

Dreams and visions are children of fog.

Early morning star tempests

prepare the almond trees for blossom,

the vineyards for wine

and the lighthouse for bless.

Stalactites and stalagmites promise

a crown of morning dew,

after the santification of the waters.

There would be no summits to reach,

only continuous climbing up,

to destroy the World and recreate it.

LISBON

Calypso

Generous curbs and colourful hills

and the gipsy Alfama,

luring the liquid spine of Tagus,

at the breath of a vision.

Soulful quarters like azulejos,

in an atlantic piece of art

and a haze distant violin music,

overpowered by a fado scream.

The Bairo Alto is silent and noble,

the Rossio furious and agitated,

the pregnant Chiado is empty

and the mouth of the ocean is sad.

The beauty is born out of cataclysm,

out of an earthquake, out of a spasm,

launching waves of desire.

The heart can measure everything.

LUXEMBOURG, BRUSSELS

Charybdis and Scylla

The light of Turner on the valley

reflects generous hills and fairy tales.

It tries to seal Europe.

In vain.

And then, light submerges in the dark,

the summer declines,

the winter smiles,

with rainy lips.

Poor rich city,

it destroyed Horta's poems

to make tunnels, viaducts and rain.

Rain and stain and pain.

The solar cities smile,

the oceanic cities forget,

tulips still grow in the Flandyers

and the capital of Europe is still Washington.

MALAGA, TARRAGONA, MADRID

Penelopes

Each Plaza Mayor is an ochred poem

each plaza de Toros a white shell,

each river a drop of fire and blood.

And TOLEDO a noble island,

anchored

on the valley of the windmills.

And BARCELONA back to the sea,

rational and imaginative,

sculptured, organic and chromatic

Chicotic cities,

refined and subtle,

in the scent of orange blossoms;

they just ask for a full moon.

NEW YORK

Cyclops

There is only one winner

in the Marathon of cities.

Other cities can just skate

on the Central Park.

It has lips of steel,

eyebrows of glass

and a heart of sand

to radiate power.

Sociopetal and sociofugal,

with constellations of multispeed quarters,

quarters like landmines,

and others, carrying exile like a hump.

The Statue of Liberty stands proud,

in a pregnant silence

and an ambiguous smile,

as a lift to the starry flame.

Run. You can reach the stars,

only law is speed.

Run to the ocean, run to the sky,

run and live to the fullest!

PARIS

Lotus Eater

Is that being part of a dream?

Walking on the golden leaves of the Champs,

crossing a transparent and transcendent river

and taste celestial harmony in amorous quarters.

Beauty is an aim without purpose,

some longing for the absolute,

some bricky warmth from Place des Vosges.

Beauty is not an abstract value.

Go to the island of Saint-Luis,

sunny or sunless

and forget and forgive and feel;

Life may become Fate.

ROME

Amphitrite

A honey coloured forum

and a stage set for spectacle.

Art for art's sake

and a cathedral to end all cathedrals.

Bernini and Boromini shake hands

over divine Piazza Navona,

ordained for greatness,

exquisitely baroque.

Light and shadow,

Orbi and Urbi,

the longest the twilight,

the spendidst the dawn.

Golden mirror of the past,

magnifying glass for today,

telescope for the future

and culture, supreme flower of nature.

VENICE

Serene Siren

A theatre emerging from the sea

like Venus, might and demure

feminine and idle and sublime,

at the speed of the desire.

Its glance is like an embrace,

canals are like hair from coral reef,

the lace lagoon sighs with grace

and the superfluous is necessary.

Sensuousness and spell,

celestial lamps

and liquid order.

Happiness might be contagious.

Just reverse the Ponte Rialto

and drink and dream.

The essential secret is harmony,

harmony in fusion.

Like this poem,

thrown to the sea.

WARSAW

Circe

The old square is not conscious

of regrets or longings,

forgotten carnations on posters

mask renovated walls.

The Palace of Culture and Science

can only fit in a rainless heavy sky

The Opera Wielki is immense

with an amphitheatre on its sole scene.

The lakes of Wilanov reflect a pale sky

and the desire of escape

is hang from a bright star,

like a flower basket.

A Chopin's forgotten note at Zasienki Parc

and far the values of the black market

and between them Warsaw.

The immemorial drama may begin again.

EUMENIDES POLIS

Crucible cities,

where dreams seals the brick,

where time resists space,

where sun meets the moon.

Cities-acxtors and cities-scenes,

emerging and submerging,

flying and creeping,

improving cities.

Vulnerable cities and cities enduring,

declining and arising,

chaotic and harmonious,

innovating cities.

Conflicting or divided cities,

cities torn apart and united again,

always reconcilable,

never interchangeable, Cities.

Cities like a drug

for sustainable Journeys,

between the infinite and nothing;

the infinite leaves always something.

Cities, at the mercy of users and abusers,

of invaders and tourists,

of dreams and plans,

nothing sustainble but visions.

Sustainable visioins and sustained winds,

amorphe cities and cities amphorae,

amphorae

of ecstasis and tears.

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Siren Cities by Voula Mega