Atina Poems
Emma Roper-Evans
Atina Angles
Site specific: Cartiera/Paper factory
Vats empty of all
But air
Fans still spinning
In said air
Lit by rose windows
Spilling light onto shards of glass,
Broken tiles, manufacturing rubble,
Strewn over acres of floor.
Green submarine lustre of forest
Closing in
Tight, tight round the edifice
Snug corset of emerald
And sage
Darkening factory floor to grotto
Making a sacred space
Where once people,
Manually pressing and pulping
Laying and drying
Worked.
Creating reams of pale paper
For language.
Snow white sheets
On which ink
Sprawled where it will.
Home now to bugs,
Trickles,
The occasional goat
Its busyness quieted
As slow dereliction
Creeps pitifully up the stairs
Manuscript to Abandonment
Drawn on by artists now
Spinning their webs of
Meaning in the dark
Dragging space into light
Ruin into
Abstract Modernity.
Peaks
Mountains, too
Canvasses
Layers of red net
Onto bold cliff
Framed by soft woods
Sheep grazing
Springs,
Forces of the
Underground
Soaring up
Through rock,
Into bright
Lucid air.
Live intervention
Then
Police presence
Eeee orrrr
Eeeee orrrr
Artists on mountain
In breach
Of all laws
As usual
Materials
Bricks. Wire.
Tree trunks.
Concrete
Useless for all else
But creating sheep
Magical monuments
To place.
Skeins of meaning
Natural Engagement
As
Butterflies
Flying leaves
Float
Kissing
Round artists’ heads
While they prepare
To show.
Post Partum Impressions
Rain drinking trees
Spout steam
Into the newly green
As art sinks into
The landscape
Onto Roman pavements
Sabine walls
Atina-ed
At last
24 Hours in Atina
Soundscape
Venti Quattro ore in Atina
Paesaggio Sonoro
1. – Uno
Bubbolio
Hooting owls gliding through deciduousness.
2. – Due
Pipistrello
Flapping bats on window panes lined in silver
3. – Tre
Campane
Bell church sounding in the still night, signs of life still.
4. – Quattro
Spazzare
Sweeping woman coming out of her house at dawn.
5. – Cinque
Gatti
Cats hungry for all things. Thin and needy.
6. – Sei
Pulci
Fleas on cats buzzing and jumping. Symphonies in fur.
7. – Sette
Bastone
Stick clattering on cobbles as the lady ventures out
8. – Otto
La macchinetta del Café
Coffee machine – Belching fragrant dark into china white.
9. – Nove
Buongiorno – People greet each other under a fine sun.
10. – Dieci
Rullio del tamburo
Drum roll of shutters. Shop opening.
11.– Undici
Tintinnio e fruscio
Tinkle and rustle as money changes endless hands.
12. – Dodici
Battere
Solar beating on all surfaces in an equality of light for 1, 2, 3, 4 hours of liquid time.
Pomeriggio / Afternoon
4. – Quattro
Sbadiglio
Yawns as Siestinos stretch and reach into the day
5. – Cinque
Canta e spruza
Fountain ringing and singing to a square of lions
6. – Sei
Calpestio
Feet slapping smooth marbled pavements worn down by a millennia of peoples
7. – Sette
Bruzio e lampo
Buzz and flash of electric lights that zizz the rooms into the night.
8. – Otto
Vettovagliare
Cutlery bashing into food and mouths – Cling . . . Clang!
9. – Nove
Cincinnare . . . cincinnare
Glasses, clinking Salute to us all.
10. – Dieci
Abbaiare
Dogs restless and barking,
making sure we know they are here
11. – Undici
Sbattere
Doors closing. Keeping the night out, the people in.
12. – Dodici
Russare
Snores of the houses under Saturn’s bi-polar stare.
Emma Roper-Evans is a London based writer, translator and interpreter. She won a Glimmer Train Open Fiction Award and a Füst Milán Prize for literary translation from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In Summer 2017 she took part in the Atina Artist Residency in Lazio, Italy. She has two collections of short stories, Triangulations and Floating Sopranos, and is completing her first novel. She has worked with her daughter, the photographer India Roper-Evans, on Locus Criminis involving a photo of a set-up crime scene, accompanied by a storyparagraph about the murder/suicide/death etc. This was shown in: The Fall of Rebel Angels, Castello 1610/A, Venice (56th Venice Biennale) 2015; POP up FUCK off, Broadway Studios, London, UK, 2015; and Chinese Open – Year of the Sheep, QPark, London, UK, 2015. She took part in #51% Remember Her show organised by Rebecca Feiner, London, March 2017, and is helping curate the literary side of Feiner’s 2018 #100 Remember Her to celebrate 100 years since female suffrage to be held at the same venue in April 2018. Emma Roper-Evans is online at edrestories.com.
