Sitron Panopoulos

 

 

 

(England)

 

 

Arc De Triomphe.

 

You will never be one of them kid,     

you won’t fit in-

and though you long to belong

your path is different.

 

Your voice will not drop like theirs

your steps will not grow sturdy

for your thoughts cannot rest

on these misty streets

in these moist valleys,

under summer rain.

 

To father’s disappointment     

you will not enter his world

where men with big hands

meet

for quite drinks

in afternoon pubs

and talk of nothing.

 

For you    

a fleeting cosmos

lighted and ready,

foreign ports,

Parisian beds

and many friends

to press your heart against

 

For you

wall cities

to keep you safe,

Berlin winds

to soothe your thoughts

marble chests

to lay your head to rest.

 

For you

nuclear basements  

to waste  your youth,

lit doorways

your arc de triomphe.

 

Here

everything

falls into place

here

everything

falls apart

before it all

starts

again

 

Fear not

the endless autobahns

seemingly steering you away

fear not

the crystal mountains

that make you slip and sway

fear not

the fever

that drives out your dreams .

 

As all is accounted for

 

by the Gods

 

who only grow dark

 

when you stand fearful

 

and refuse to walk

 

the path you were assigned.

 

 

 

 

La Cunt

 

Would you still give me

the same eyes,

you gave me back then,

then

still give me nothing?

 

Do we still ‘love’

like we use to,

or do we have

our backs covered?

 

 

 

 

Streets of Berlin

 

 

Summer after summer the midnight city

was calling me.

 

To offer me her anarchy,

to walk me through her lighted avenues

where I would breathe tomorrow’s world.

 

She’d dance me through empty stations

‘sway with the young,

the perverted,

the spirited.’

 

Oh, how far do we travel,

for a bit of freedom,

for a different truth,

and a new emotion?

_

 

The summer we all wore

American Apparel

 

The summer we all wore

American Apparel

and rolled on fields

within the city.

 

The sun did not come out

but we didn’t mind –

we had sunshine

in a bag.

 

We were happy enough

for once,

to sit back

and watch the world go by.

 

Our dreams were changing,

impossible goals of the past

felt irrelevant at last.

 

The night would fall on the local bar,

hungry wolves

looking for love.

 

Sometimes, after closing time,

friends became lovers for the night,

in a warehouse – in Dalston.

 

Some of us sober,

some of us drunk,

most of us single,

except the one

couple, the couple,

the couple, the couple.

 

August came and we had to go

to the countries we all came from –

but the couple were a passport

short.

 

Then,

a party on a roof,

until the sunrise,

the morning light,

that blinds the eye,

the lover that slips,

the head that hits the ground.

 

Time stops.

The city is silent.

 

The lover stares

at his dead lover,

lying lifeless,

half naked

in a pair

of American Apparel shorts.

 

The telephone calls

to different countries,

the tears that fall,

the ones that don’t –

the time to put our friendship to the test,

to see if all the promises we made

were meant.

 

When good times come your way,

don’t be scared they may not stay,

they may do or they may not,

but my friend –

you fear not.

 

 

 

 

Wedding belles

 

They went to the wedding as friends,

not as the raucous couple.

They mingled,

both steady on their feet,

proud and unafraid.

 

As she walked down the aisle

they looked at each other

and tears

dropped on the wooden pew.

 

And later in the afternoon

as they lay on satin sheets

their bodies knew

not to assume positions

they had been accustomed to.

Ten years earlier they had thought

life without each other impossible –

now they had learned

to live alone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

____________________________________________

 

The Author

 

Sitron moved to London at the age of 17 to study film-making, but instead of making films he ended up putting

his stories to music. Several bands followed, including early collaborations with Patrick Wolf and the late Leigh

Bowery’s band Minty. Then, in 2004, he was invited by the British Arts Council to provide music for Help,

an exhibition curated by the sculptor Gary Webb that would mark the opening of the Olympic Games in Athens.

In 2008 designer Kostas Murkudis asked Sitron to contribute poems to his book Monogram, published by Taschen.

It was then that he made the leap from music to poetry. “It made sense to me because when I’m writing songs

the words always come first,” he explains. “The music is there to make the words sit comfortably!”

After contributing poems to the London-based Undercurrent magazine, he embarked on the current collection

of poems and short stories. In These Great Democracies is a token of gratitude to all the democratic

societies that allow people to live freely – the democracies we have run to in order to become the people we

always wanted to be. This poetry collection is part one of a conceptual music and poetry project, with an album

of the same title and theme released later this year.