After The Birds, The IMF
VazamBam
by Vassilis Zambaras
“After Archilochos”
buggered
Ly[kambes’]
promises
[perforated]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Neo[bule’s?]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
cheek hot damp-
crotched [heat] snatch
my
trusty
ash-
spear
stiff
[sweet?]
[but here the papyrus has ludicrous, gaping holes]
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
tra-
ver-
sing
Ly-
[
[
[
[
[kambes’]
[ ]
[ ]
[ ]
bank
[rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr]
[upt]
[ass?]
[sadly, wholly eaten away by moths]
MELIGALAS, Greece—(Weekly Hubris)—11/8/10—Unfortunately, Vazambam’s dispatch was snatched away by harpies disguised as greedy, corrupt politicians who, like the despicable Lykambes centuries before him, have no need of poets to remind them what bankrupt birds of prey they really are.
And how do you like your carrion, Mr. IMF?
Vassilis Zambaras
Vassilis Zambaras According to such reliable inside sources as The Weekly Hubris’s Publishing-Editor, VazamBam aka Vassilis Zambaras is all of the following, and more, in an order no one can vouchsafe as definitive: a publishing poet who writes every day of his life; a hugely successful father (and a not-so-very-successful local political candidate); a professor of English as a Foreign Language, with portfolio; a Renaissance Man of many skills, useful and not-so; a fount of information about his particular corner of his birth country; an unstable and utterly unique mix of Greek and American, American and Greek; and the man fortunate and wily enough to have made off with Messenia’s loveliest and most talented local daughter as his child bride. Besides being all the aforementioned, other more dubious sources have also reported seeing him hanging out at the corner of vazambam.blogspot.com—in the guise of a “new old kid on the blog, with an occasional old or new poem written off the old writer’s block.” Author Photo: Pericles Boutos