{"id":67,"date":"2012-01-31T18:35:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-31T18:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=67"},"modified":"2012-01-31T18:35:00","modified_gmt":"2012-01-31T18:35:00","slug":"stav-polegs-athena-of-the-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/stav-polegs-athena-of-the-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Stav Poleg's 'Athena of the City'"},"content":{"rendered":"

From<\/span> Athena of the city<\/span>
<\/p>\n


I<\/span>
Athena of the city,<\/span>

there\u2019s no Acropolis here, in what August <\/span>
makes out of this place, <\/span>

upturned umbrellas and wind of high-pitch, the summer<\/span>
of sales and last-chances.<\/span>

So I try and travel the cities of London <\/span>
as if you\u2019ve never left. In every street and site-specific,<\/span>

under the sky\u2019s uncertainties of moon, I look for<\/span>
all the things you are: actors wakeful as cities, eagles of the sea, <\/span>

or tour-guides as things-on-hold. But when you finally arrive,<\/span>
looking like a miscast leading-lady <\/span>

in a city with no particular protagonist, exchanging smoke<\/span>
for stories, but holding the plot like the wings<\/span>

of a restless horse, I know it\u2019s you, it must be you, <\/span>
but I can hardly recognise your face.<\/span>


II<\/span>
Boarding card, occupation<\/span>

Where should I start? <\/span>

Showing the way from Troy to Ithaca. (Tour-guide?) <\/span>

A young girl. A shepherd. An image. (Actress?)<\/span>

A northern wind. A cloud. A sea-eagle. (Winter?)<\/span>

Goddess. Let\u2019s put it as goddess. (Goddess?)<\/span>



III<\/span>
Home was it?<\/span>

– Where have you been all this time?  <\/span>
– I\u2019ve been showing Odysseus the way, haven\u2019t I?<\/span>

– I thought he\u2019d already –<\/span>
– He never finds it. <\/span>

– But according to the book –<\/span>
– You and your books and ideas <\/span>
                          of people looking for home, ending up<\/span>

                          finding it. It\u2019s August. Everyone\u2019s away and<\/span>
                          everywhere. Go outside, order Kir Royale to start with,<\/span>
                          celebrate something outrageous, or<\/span>
                          failing that, <\/span>

                          go for outdoor activities. Not so much as<\/span>
                          out-of-doors but out of here, whichever name<\/span>
                          you\u2019ve given it. Home was it, <\/span>
                          or memory?<\/span>


XII<\/span>
Instead of reading <\/span>

– I went to the British Museum <\/span>
– That\u2019s not what I meant. <\/span>
– to look for you.<\/span>
– I once went to the pool to look for myself.<\/span>
– Past the upper-floor galleries<\/span>
– I hoped I\u2019d fall in love with the image, <\/span>
– and the changing-displays,<\/span>
– but there were so many images,<\/span>
– and the ceiling of cast-iron and sky,<\/span>
– so I jumped in.<\/span>
– and back to ground-floor level-zero, <\/span>
– Although I can\u2019t say it felt like falling<\/span>
– where lots of people gathered, <\/span>
– from one place to another.  <\/span>
– but I couldn\u2019t find you.  <\/span>
  <\/span>

XIII<\/span>
Daughter<\/span>
 <\/span>

My head of a horse is in London,<\/span>
my legs and my hands running through another <\/span>
city, running like the child bursting out <\/span>
of her father\u2019s headache, <\/span>

and I\u2019ve never even liked Athens, <\/span>
but it was somewhere to put my wings up<\/span>
in the blue Acropolic air, bathing <\/span>
in the Heliotic sun, as if the sun stretched-out <\/span>

to be sky itself, letting my grey-eye draw back<\/span>
in my sleep, or half-sleep, or daydream, if<\/span>
you\u2019re willing to believe dreaming\u2019s possible<\/span>
under a 40-Celsius sky<\/span>




\u2028*Stav Poleg<\/span>\u2019s poetry is published in<\/span> Magma, The Rialto, Horizon Review<\/span>, <\/span>Nthpositon,<\/span> and <\/span>Brand Literary Magazine<\/span>. <\/span>Athena of the City<\/span> was recently performed (reading) at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, as part of Words, Words, Words new-writing event.  <\/span>



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From Athena of the city IAthena of the city,there\u2019s no Acropolis here, in what August makes out of this place, upturned umbrellas and wind of high-pitch, the summerof sales and last-chances.So I try and travel the cities of London as if you\u2019ve never left. In every street and site-specific,under the sky\u2019s uncertainties of moon, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}