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Sophia Argyris

I have an MA in Performance from Goldsmiths, and have worked on Multimedia performances using spoken word, film and music as well as live performance. For the last year I have been concentrating on writing poetry, and am now beginning to work towards publication. I have had several poems published in Inclement Magazine and The Beat online magazine this year.

Nightmares Come Rushing

These nightmares come rushing

with a hunger.

I watch you swept away

by the sobbing  tide;

My arms are left wrapped

around a darkness

that cries out in your voice,

too insubstantial and too far gone.

My guilt will be born, and borne

away with you.

You cannot swim.

the water fills your mouth.

My guilt suffocates me in the heat of the bed

where the nightmares come rushing

with increasing ferocity.

You drown in my dreams

and night after night

I fail to save you.

The Mouth Of The Well

There's an emptiness growing,

like a baby, inside me;

swelling my belly.

Its a giant O,

the mouth of a well.

No one can look into nothingness

without going blind.

It makes me heavy, weighted;

so life is underwater

and i'm dragging leaden limbs

through a muffled world.

Once, it was almost born,

but miscarried and i escaped;

next time won't be so lucky.

Next time it will take me on it's tongue

and swallow me down to it's recesses,

where no one will be able to look at me

without going blind

Older

The hills shoulder the clouds

Under a sun that's

Somehow clearer;

Somehow stranger.

I trespass into a past

I tried to avoid at all costs.

It's a jagged world here,

Only softened by thoughtful

Greenery rounding the edges

Of jarring rocks and cold water skies.

Memories trickle down

And flap above me,

But timid,

Do not come too near.

My eyes can rest

In wonder on this country now,

Where once they jittered;

Could not see a thing.

I was blinded then

By my image,

Reflected and bouncing,

Ungainly and ugly,

Off everything.

The view from here

Is a sweeter relief than

Any release of breath.

A peace has grown

Like roots and rivers

Under my bones and skin.

copyright © Sophia Argyris