The Acropolis: A Poem in Five Parts

Kristina Makansi

This poem was started while sitting at the rooftop bar and finished in my room at a hotel in the Plaka. I’ve never shared it before, but today I gathered my courage and read it at an open mic event sponsored by the Arizona Writers Association at the Tucson Historic Y. So, here goes:

The Acropolis and Parthenon at night. This is a shutterstock photo, not my own.

1. 

Inside, she stands beneath 

an artificially thatched roof, 

waiting for a customer 

to order a glass of wine, 

or perhaps a bottle. 

The menthol from her cigarette 

floats through the open door, 

dancing in the cool night air, 

mingling with the fragrance of 

jasmine and honeysuckle. 

The rest of us sit, facing forward, 

supplicants paying homage 

to the goddess in her 

house on the hill. 

Where else, I wonder, 

has man built up such a 

perfect testament to the power of beauty, 

to the beauty of power, 

only to see it destroyed and decayed. 

And yet it remains before us 

bathed in white, hot, halogen, 

golden, glowing, against a 

blue black sky, punctuated only 

by the eternal travelers, 

Venus and Mars, 

passersby on their nightly sojourn. 

2.
I order another glass, 

dry white, please, 

and return to my journal, 

illuminated only by the yellow flame 

of a single small oil lamp 

on my table for one. 

There is no God but God, 

and we are all her prophets, 

singing hymns of civilizations 

built up and torn down 

by our own devices 

with our own hands. 

We are creators and destroyers, 

divine, made manifest, 

reflections of good and evil,

 flesh and incarnate, 

by no one but ourselves. 

There is no truth but truth, 

and we are all its prophets, 

Tilling, planting, sowing, 

our faith out of the fertile soil 

of our own fevered imaginations, 

transcribing it in ancient texts, 

declaring it holy, sacred, immutable, 

eternal, according to our own hubris. 

3.

Cobbled streets testify to 

3000 years of travelers and 

citizens, freemen, and slaves 

echoing laughter and lament, 

Plain tree and hemlock, 

comedy and tragedy 

played out under the 

watchful eye of the goddess. 

The young man holds the elevator 

door for me and says, which floor? 

And I say rooftop garden. 

And he replies that it's getting ready to close. 

What time is it? I ask, my body still 

ticking to the time passing 6,000 miles away. 

And he says 12:15 and I say, 

oh, I must have forgotten 

to change my watch in London. 

You don't sound like you're from London, 

he says, and we talk as our 

tiny room crawls heavenward, 

only to discover our roots are 

planted in the same black earth 

and our paths led us, 

pens in hand, 

toward the same blue sky, 

from Midwestern soil to Athenian Street, 

toward light and dark, 

toward the truth that only 

a well-chosen word can reveal. 

We're going to the islands, he said, 

All students of the word 

as it is imagined by a 

hand-hewn soul, 

self-created, 

self-creating, 

self-immolating. 

4. 

There is no word but the word, 

and we are all its prophets. 

How does the hand know 

what the pen will reveal? 

Like invisible ink appearing 

before a child's excited eyes, 

secrets encoded in lemon juice, 

spies play acting the part of 

mother, father, 

teacher, preacher, 

judge, jury, 

executioner. 

The pen moves over the page, 

issuing its proclamations, 

weaving a new reality from the 

detritus of the old. 

What did Athena do when Morosini 

turned his cannons on her acropolis? 

What did Buddha do when the 

Taliban turn their scholarly eyes on the Bamiyan ? 

What did David do when his city on the hill fell? 

What did Muhammad do when his city on the hill fell? 

What did Jesus do when his city on the hill fell? 

What did he do when my father fell? 

What did I do when my fellow man fell? 

Nothing. 

5.

In vino veritus, so they say, 

the tongue is loosed, 

the pen empowered, 

the mind ablaze with wonderment—at what? 

What is in the world is of the world. 

And I am of the world. 

My skin is lightly brushed 

with the soft kiss of an Aegean breeze. 

My feet are dusty, 

coated with the urban grime of 

2008 AD and 360 BC. 

Time slides backward

time slides forward, 

elastic in space, 

in place, 

in meaning. 

I lift my cup to Dionysus and 

toast to the mystery of terroir, 

of vine and fruit, 

earth, and sky, 

flood and drought, 

of bringing forth, 

joining together, 

destroying utterly, 

of mixing the blood of Gaia 

with the blood of my pen, 

and the view from room 411.