Two Poems by Yiota D. Dienni

Into the lake

I kiss you bluntly
like an honest fluvial trout

I kiss you timidly
and with a frank reference
like a solemn spinster
while sinking into the crystal
spring water

I kiss you subtly
like the oak trees of Fulton
that bent like an arch over my car

I kiss you with the smile of Plath
when she hugs her kids
in the meadow with the daffodils.

Poetry is a dear friend

We meet and we immediately sink
into our coffees. We chat as you offer me
tobacco words and silence of the woods.

You introduce me to the trout that keeps asking
“Has the water upstream become a lazy current”
and then you send me out to pick the first wild spring
asparangus for our breaded veal.

I stumble and fall
but I don’t mind since balance has always been
an enemy to creativity, so I return home
with my hands full of flora
and we garnish our meat with delicious
buttered mushrooms.

Sometimes we fight
I boil with anger and I blame you, but then I decide
to write with my furious hooves and a wind blows up.

Luckily, you never abandon me
—instead you cover me with your wings
that create that incredible sound:
the rattle of dreams.



Yiota D. Dienni is a Greek professor and scholar. In her country she has published eight books of poetry, while  several poems of hers have been printed in electronic literature journals. In 2011 she was awarded the second prize in a national literal completion organized by “Parnassus”, the most prominent literatary society in Greece. She is an avid reader and writer as well as a researcher who believes that the road moves too. She currently lives with her family  in Athens.