Nicholas Grapsias  

Nicholas Grapsias is an Intern Psychologist, and has recently completed a PhD in Creative Arts. He has lectured in Creative Writing and has been a supervisor for the Master of Arts (Creative Writing) degree at the University of Western Sydney. Southern Strangers is the final major work of his PhD that examines the experiences of Greek migrants. The book will be the follow up to his previous book of poetry, Bohemian Rose.


Exodus

mud delivers him
her soft bleeding hands
her cross and her sword
by the bed

she sings him tales from
smyrna and missolonghi
byron’s greek war song
as she cuts the umbilicus

in the purse of his heart
she places her beating soil
still wet with the blood of
all the heroes of freedom

dare you never spend this
she says, carry it always
to remember who you are
and from where you came

across the earth
scattered as our ruins
children of the diasporas
children of leonidas…

Gang Fights

There was not much farming to do during Malamata’s winters. Sometimes the village youth would secretly go around at night and swap everyone’s cartwheels, putting small ones with the big ones. There was nothing funnier than seeing morning cursing farmers riding their limping carts; “Damn you! Paliopeda, the devil takes you! The devil to take you all!!” Or seeing them meet in the square, arguing as they try to sort out whose wheels were whose, the frustrated farmers shouting at each giggling kid that passed, pointing at the town’s ‘Y’ tree where they’d skin their animals; “If we catch you, that’s where we’ll hang you!” It was that or gang fights. Malamata was divided into Upper Mahala and Lower Mahala, Kosta was in Upper Mahala, the part of town where the shops were. He and his fellow gang members could leisurely sit at his father’s tavern, drinking sodas and chase any Lower Mahala gang member all the way back down. They would imitate ancient heroes, honoring the bravest with names like Achilles and Odysseus, Leonidas and Alexander the Great.

Kosta points to a Lower Mahala member, “You’re all finished!” The boy picks up a stone and throws it, Kosta yells holding his shin, “I’m going to kill you.” Kosta calls his brothers Jimmi and Yianni, they chase the boy all the way to his door. “Better not step foot up town,” Yianni yells. “He has to,” Jimmi shouts, “all the shops are there.” It was two weeks before they saw him. There he was at the Taravira’s Kafenio wearing his best church clothes, sitting with the men drinking lemonade. “Huh, he thinks he’s safe,” Kosta says, “Give me your slingshot Yianni,” “Crack his head open!” Yianni says handing it over. Kosta picks up a walnut-sized rock, closing one eye and poking the tip of his tongue out, he pulls the elastic as far back as it could go…the boy screams, falling off his chair and holding his left eye, blood saucing all over his face and shirt. “Shit!” Kosta yells, “I got his eye, I’m dead! I’m dead!” he runs, throwing the slingshot. The men hold the boy still, forcing his hands away from his face, they sigh shaking their heads, “It’s nothing, it’s nothing,” as they inspect the deep slice on the socket bone. Kosta slept at his cousin’s place for one week until he thought it was safe to go home, but as soon as he snuck back in, his mother grabbed him by the ear and gave him a beating with the stinging ivy vine tsouknida which grew in the backyard; “Your stupid little gang fights could have destroyed that child for life!” “Ah! Ah!” Kosta yells as she hit, pretending it hurt more than it did; he was glad to get it over with, he missed her cooking.

O Karagiozi

The barefoot children run after him, laughing and
yelling as he sings, riding his horse and cart into
Malamata; “Ei O Karagiozi is coming, O Karagiozi.”

Papou and village friends row the tavern chairs,
Yiayia prepares him room. Five Drachmas each,
for Patra’s favourite clown, the Grapsei kids help
hold his stick pictures as he sings playing his
bouzouki. The villager’s crowd, singing with him,
raising their drinks and shouting;
“To your health Karagiozi! To your health!”

They all laugh as puppets trot across the stage.
Barba Yioryis, the strong herdsman with the glitsa
who knew not of schooling, chases the Turkish
sultans, kicks and punches, glass and nails, throwing
them out of windows. How the clown Nionio would
laugh as Turks roll through goat shit on the road.

And fat Kolitiri, always eating, “Babaka, babaka,”
         “What is it son?”
          “Babaka, babaka, I’m hungry, I’m hungry.”

And there is Zakinthos the Cool, “Na poume re,”
who would slap Nionio like Abbot would Costello.
But don’t ridicule Stavrakas, he’s the tough manga,
“I'll pull out my knife, and give you a few spathies!”
“Babaka!”
                                    “What re??” 
                                    “I’m hungry, I’m hungry.”

The thunder of the villager’s laughter that smell of
dairy and sacred mud. Their lamb greased fingers
and lips, their Ouzo eyes shining in the firelight
of Papou’s taverna; “Ei O karagiozi, O karagiozi,”

                                      The karagiozi is here!

One Day in Greek School

Eight-year-old Kosta looks out the classroom window,
he watches birds settle upon the school roof.

As soon as the morning break-bell rings,
he bolts all the way home.
Yiayia plucks a chicken on the back step,
“What are you doing home?” she yells,
“Getting something to eat mama.”
“Na pas quickly, back to scholio!”

Kosta tiptoes into his father’s room,
he carefully picks up the double-barreled shotgun.
He tiptoes into his brother Jimmi’s room
and puts on his military overcoat,
the woolen hem splashing through mud puddles
as he runs back to school, hiding the gun underneath.

Kids were playing when he runs into the yard,
the birds were still there. Kosta takes out the gun,
he falls onto one knee and props it on his thigh.
Lining up the sight, he fires
four kalimanes fall, twitching and spinning,
along with pieces of roof tile. His teacher yells,
“Kosta! Ah Kosta Grapsa!” He chases him
as Kosta grabs the lice-infested birds and runs.
“Come back aliti, come back!

“Kosta!” his father yells, “where did you get those?”
                                            “On the school roof.”
                                            “With what?”
                                            “With your gun”...

“Bravo Kosta!” he says slapping him on the back,
“Bravo! From now on gunpowder and hunting!”
Kosta hands the birds to Yiayia,
“Told you I was getting something to eat” he smiles.
YIayia slowly shakes her head.

The Grenade

Gioryi returned after completing national service,
he smokes with his mates behind the school,
showing off the hand-grenade he stole.

Lambros calls Kosta and Stelios,
“Gioryi’s got a cheromovida, he’s going to throw it!”
              Gioryi pulls out the pin, base-balling it into bushes,
                                    nothing! Not even a fizz. “It’s diffused you meatball!
You stole a practice one!” Gioryi follows them,
“There’s no such thing as practice ones goat-boy!”…

“Go get it Lambros” whispers Kosta nudging him.
There they stand, their heads inches away
as ‘Lambros the expert’ frantically rotates it

                                    this is the handle, the pinhole, the powder is in here!”
Kosta and Stelios lie down beside the school
as Lambros throws it into the courtyard, “Ka-boom!”

                                    School windows shatter, render collapses.
                                    Hearing the villager’s approach, they bolt into farms.
                                    On Monday, their parents dragged them to school

by the earlobes, “Paliopaida!” they yell
as the three have a large ‘X’ shaved on the top of their
                                    heads, in front of the whole laughing school.

Xeniteia

He woke early, red dawn smears a lightly
feathered sky, he stares at the mountains
of Malamata. He stares at mother, tossing
corn to the chickens; handful by handful
they rain, solidified stale and yellow, like
the tears she’s held for this inevitable day.
Kosta opens his suitcase, packs but three
items of his only clothes, he closes it and
stares around the room. His father enters,
“Some money for your trip sport, hope no
Australeza breaks your heart,” they smile.

Mother waits for him at the bottom of the
stairs, wiping her tears, “I lose you too??
my child so far away, so far away” Kosta
looks down to hide his tears. “Go my son,
go to Australia to prosper, good luck and
don’t stray,” she puts her mahogany hands
around his face and kisses both his cheeks…

Kosta boards the Patris at Piraeus, he sees
the metre of water that separates the liner
from his homeland, watching droves cross
it absently as they ascend the ships ramps;
tears, hugs, waving and excitement in the

                                     exodus, full of promises for ‘a better life.’
                                     O Hellenes, climb, climb high with your

                                     stubborn spirit of resilience, your proud
                                     soul of restless freedom, full of discovery
                                     and enterprise. Carry all the heroes that
                                     haunt your heavy blood, that visit in your
                                     dreams, never forgetting to thank them for
what you have today. Let ‘Molon Labe’ be
your motto, your song, Rigas’s ‘Thourios’
and may you choose death before slavery
like the Women of Zalongo. Never forget
where ever you go, that you, O Hellenes
are the children of democracy, of ancient
virtue, the race that awoke the world, yes 
O Vincent Castlereagh. For the greatest
disaster of a people is not the diasporas,
but to forget this…Go Southern Stranger,
finish the journey that Alexander started,
find ‘the lucky country’, with my blessing…

                                   “How many meters apart?” Kosta whispers,
                                   “when will I ever see my homeland again?
                                    My hunger still burns for her”. Songs of the
                                    Diasporas play over the ship’s speakers, as
The Patris sounds and pulls out. The tremble
of his grip as tears run free off Kosta’s chin,

                                    falling into the blue boil of the Aegean Sea.