Journal of creative work

Subito Vassiliki Rapti, The Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation Assistant Teaching Professor, University of Missouri-St. Louis, USA, raptiv@umsl.edu “Statement of Purpose” Subito is an experimental poem that is the result of ludic activity. It is an open game in which a subject speaks with an object, which, in this case, happens to be a doll named Phoebe (=Full of light, like Apollo as Phebus). Phoebe ultimately comes to live and switches roles with the speaking subject. In this endless game of role reversal the initial speaking subject goes through a trance and comes to terms with its inner desires and fears to finally fully submit itself to love. Lyrical and philosophical, this game continues on the level of language (a mixture of English and Greek with allusions to Greek myths and the Orthodox tradition of the Holy Virgin) by evoking vivid imagery while drawing the reader’s attention to its inner symmetry, mainly illustrated by acronyms reminiscent of Byzantine hymnography. Subito ACTIVITY I Phoebe the doll’s name she lay by me. Subito naked she walks on my body staring at my eyes. I SEE suddenly sea flowers puppets of actual gods endless meanders chameleons crawling in the woods terracotta in search of breath rains of sacrificial cries untold laments of a lying destiny moonstruck pencils ceaselessly scribbling ochers on island walls, firemen in a forgotten ocean liner storms unearthly lava brides alone in a desert parish, joyful lovers of herons eagle feathers wide-open, chapters closed to the blinds tropical algae in a woman’s neck, ideal broaches in silken veils viruses haunting in the citrons, endless diluvium drifting away everything other virgins in a stormy time, beautiful morning melodies joint stars shining in the night, edenic waves of magnetic fields combs in a black braid, trumpets of vanished elephants iodine rainbows in wide seas, orgasmic moments of an amber neck fearing to bend in spring nightmares. ACTIVITY II Phoebe seals my eyes And starts dictating to me these lines: Notes ask for a hand A llama in a Morocco vessel Garden, full of flowers Ionic ashes hiding sparks Astrolabe Glorious meditation Lyrical rose in your bosom Your fearless song Keeps you safe from a knife coming out of its hilt O thou brother who embraced compassion Fresh deliriums of challenges Inspired you a handsome child Lullaby of the sun for you Ode of a word ready to be spoken You kept the slow elegy in the blank space of a violin So that a dream can flourish inside you So be it Amen ACTIVITY III She opened my eyes, Hoping that I saw her Experimental frescoes: Creatures of Arcanes Lovers Leaders Erudites Dragons Heifers Eruptions Rapes Seductions Eclipses Lures Fires Echoes now my own voice: Ruthless Ingrate Nasty You Arachne. Then a wound pours in the light, a pain hurts me more and more a shoe wedges in a horse pad, a hand is in search of another hand a dark stone grows on the prickly bushes, an albatross starts a slow elegy an exit gives way to the hunting, a station is flirting with the passengers a mincing voice yearns for love, a watercolor longs for the color a satin, a fluff, a cyclotron, a clapper, my only arms. CONCLUSION L “The limits of life are the limits of language.” In the tube the first grain of brain rain alone Έλα your name, an invitation to you the definite article of my life, my pillar L a crossroads twisting our limits.