Features Overview

"Digital Hellos"& "Summer Address" Hobart

Digital Hellos

An erroneous message of two equals,
in a future program.

The Internet was given an italicized quote
above a colored text box,
he may have wanted to kill me.

This effluence of wealth,
the sand mound became a birthday party for us,
a laser strobe and French pop music.

One bite of a jalapeno pepper before bed,
obstinate to the clock,

I tricked the man to continue driving,
to repine, and face North,
but, as an adult. 

Summer Address

In a hallway, half of dusty mirror and half of tile,
smoke from outside,

a layer of silk, of starch
indoors on a warm Spring day,
splashed by yesterday’s puddle.

I don’t want to be at this party anymore,
where torsos touch.

My eyeglasses slide down my nose,
running through Brooklyn streets at this hour
only to find myself two floors above where summer was spent.

"Burano" The Spectacle

Burano 

On a French moon,Burano

On a French moon,

the plum stands out,

it is in Venice after all where the pink rose floats in the canal.

I ask, will I allow myself some relief?

A later addition to the canvas, attributed to classic, but not,

the Bride of Bacchus initiates herself and waits for his resurrection,

an altered state with a few brushstrokes of a paintbrush,

darkened, a direct gaze and a thin eyebrow.

I tuck my bed sheet underneath my mattress every morning.

This is a man’s chest, it beats.

"Triphylia on Easter Sunday" Landfill Journal

All of Athens empties out onto one roadway
while the others wait on the seventh hill of Rome.

Eight hours away from childhood,
a firework,
an electronic dance remix I’ve heard during the winter,
and four village bells ringing in the valley.

Children snap from behind dumpsters in the dark
as we shed our damp winter wools,
sip sweet wine,
promising to be pure,
promising to keep a secret for another year.

How I wish to decorate the tomb with white roses and jasmine,
to feel the tears through black fabric,
soak my skin with my doubt
and cross myself by memory
as gold liturgical fans pass me.

Letting go of my grandmother’s hand,
it feels good to hold onto something else tonight,
a daffodil and a vodka soda,
a cigarette between my nightclub fingers,
the accoutrements of youth.

Walking through the crowd,
on top of peanut shells and tradition,
of an unwelcomed feeling,
of being told that he is waiting to be himself,

I too, am that person waiting,
with my own yellowed and decaying palm frond spread before me.
-
Dionissios Kollias lives and writes in Brooklyn.