Demosthenes Agrafiotis, visiting from his home in Athens, Greece, is an experimentalist who deftly combines poetry, painting, photography,
intermedia, and performance with the written poem. He has authored over 13 books of poetry (in Greek and French) and essays (dedicated
to analysizing different forms of art as cultural phenomenon), and exhibited his photography, paintings, drawings, and installations internationally,
with a special interest in the relations between art and new technologies. His anthology-formatted magazine Clinamen (1980–90, co-published
by Erato Publications in Athens, 1991–94) presented an amalgam of Greek poetry and art alongside work from Europe and America (with many
first translations into Greek of prominent American and European poets). Also Professor of Sociology at the National School of Public Health in
Athens, Demosthenes Agrafiotis will be making his first San Francisco appearance.

from Chinese Notebook
by Demosthenes Agrafiotis
translated from the Greek by John Sakkis and Angelos Sakkis

* * *

48.


tracings


exclusions


the fruit offered


mediations


compromises.


*


49.



the passage is blocked



the acts of God

elicit guilt

from the duelers

of pretend reversals.


*


50.


fellow travelers



satisfactory insecurity

of the news bulletins



the speakers

pile up

politeness and condescension.


*


51.



in X

revolutions

the professors

deposit shares

of undisposed income.


*


52.


juicy information



movement

in damp spaces



excess of ambitions



refraction, expectation

in smooth skin



youthfulness.


*


53.


at the sound of hardship

the contacts spill into the corridors

the persistence of the agents

abolishes the chandeliers



the scheming

xxxxxxx slithers in low voiced

recriminations.

*

54.


operatives


destruction, machinery


the lamentation of proposals


echoes, xxxxxxxx the circles

haven’t a need of pages

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx for emptying

the faces can stand the pressure

of active tautology


the blessing of the space

and the cleaning of the pipe


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx with

participation in concessions

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx narrow fabric

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx surfaces


the hours are kept open

so that the words are

recognized in voids

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and events

posture of prayer
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx near the microphones.


*


55.


tripartite compositions


conventions

for the bodies to move

in targets

observatories

non-corresponding passions

for setting the boundaries

of the officials

xxxxxxx to guarantee the recommendations

* * *