the Athena school, despite clearly sounding Greek

is a scientology seminary for kids in Newtown

near the Carlisle Castle, just off King

street, nestled in between antiques and pretentious

home wares boutiques; I wonder do they teach translation

or anything about the venerated Sophia
goddess of gnostics and new-agers Sophia,

pure virgin spirit wedded to divine king

nametag for wisdom in the ancient Greek

if leaning on the classics is pretentious,

Sofia also directed Lost in Translation

dislocation is a readymade trope in Newtown 
I once quivered beneath the dome of Hagia Sophia

her gambrels were both humble and pretentious

like the terraces toward the south end of Newtown;

there’s a kebab joint that screens Turkish MTV on King

street called Istanbul, that’s Constantinople in Greek

some things aren’t made for translation
gentrification is blooming in Newtown

witness the unfaithful translation

of warehouses into Alpha & Beta, pretentious

apartments hoping to scrape gravitas from the Greek;

abstract nouns abound in the block names of Sofia

where I rote learnt the deeds of a Bulgarian king 
Plato was holding out for his own philosopher king

who loved wisdom and hated being pretentious

Rudolf Steiner too was a big fan of Sophia

my friend went to his schools and needed a translation

when he left – the whole world was speaking Greek

so he dropped out and slinked to bohemian Newtown
let’s fly now to snow-capped Sofia

with our meagre earnings we can live like kings

I’ll help you with the Cyrillic translation

and you can be my crutch for the Greek

our fucking will be bat-crazy and pretentious

unbound by the straitjacket of Newtown 
I’m working on a new translation for Sophia

one the Greeks will probably deem pretentious

Newtown thinks it’s full of philosopher kings