Swamped

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

When Saturday finally arrives, it is a beautiful, hot summer day,
so hot Eteocles goes to the sea twice, early in the morning and again
in afternoon. He meets Antonia on his morning visit to the sea, and
she tells him she is planning to go to the party with her girlfriend
Koula. Eteocles sends her a kiss with a movement of his lips, and Antonia
responds in kind, then they dive into the water together and
swim well out from the shore. Eteocles swims close to her and puts
his arm around her waist, but Antonia isn’t a good swimmer. She is
uncomfortable in deep water, and his touch makes her nervous. She
asks him to let her swim in peace, then says, “Tonight … tonight at
the party.” It is a promise.
Hesperus, the lone evening star, bright as ever, gazes down at the
earth later that day, watching the little ants that scurry about searching
for a common goal, a common word, a common future without
perils or famine or devastation. Bright as ever, the evening star gazes
at the land below and wonders how long it will take before its inhabitants
figure things out and settle on the concept of people helping
people rather than bombing and obliterating each other.
Under its gaze Eteocles and George walk together down the road
along the hillside toward the shore where the house of the party girl
is located. When they reach there, they find a crowd of boys and girls
already gathered in the backyard that faces out toward the sea no
more than about thirty meters away where the elevation dips sharply
down to the seashore with its sand dunes and lapping waves.
All the partygoers gather around the boys who have brought the
music from Athens, waiting for Eteocles to put a disc on so they can
dance, and as soon as this is done, all the boys and girls suddenly become
couples. George quickly pairs off with Maria, his favorite girl
in the village, and pulls her tight while the music, the latest hit by a
popular Italian singer, tuneful and modern, excites everyone and mixes
with the heady smell of the sea to create an exhilarating atmosphere.
At that moment Antonia enters the yard with Koula, a girl with black
eyes and black hair tied in a bun on top of her head.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562976

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08WP3LMPX

The Unquiet land

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

“Beware of pride, Caitlin,” Padraig admonished. “‘Pride goeth before destruction.’ Learn another lesson from your father. He was a proud man. He sought self-sufficiency and in doing so displayed spiritual pride, what the Greeks called hubris. They warned—and no one knew this better than Finn MacLir—that hubris was certain to attract the gods’ disfavour. Hubris is the sin of sins, the primal cause of sin. It consists in man’s belief that he can lift himself to the level of the divine. Beware of that, Caitlin. Only by recognising our complete worthlessness can we find salvation, entirely through God’s grace.”
Caitlin looked steadfastly at Padraig. Then she said slowly, as if weighing her words, “If you thought you could ever win my father to Christianity with a message like that—recognising our complete worthlessness—you must be very, very stupid, Padraig. No wonder my father had nothing but utter contempt for your beliefs.”
Caitlin could see from the narrowing of Padraig’s eyes and the tightening of the muscles in his jaw that her words had hurt him; but she was relentless. “He scorned your God, Padraig. He scorned all the gods. You call it hubris, the sin of sins. Finn MacLir was guilty of it, blatantly guilty. Yet he defied the gods to the very end. And even in the clutches of death they could not break his spirit. He was a man, Padraig, a proud man, and proud to be man. And I am proud to have been his daughter.”
Caitlin rose angrily, strode out of the room and slammed the door behind her.
҂
She brushed the small heap of dust into a shovel and tossed it outside through the door of the cottage. The cool evening breeze whirled it away towards the stone wall by the head of the loaney. Michael would soon be coming up the loaney from the house, and Caitlin looked for the big, familiar figure, his shoulders almost as wide as the rough path between the walls, his hair almost as yellow as the flowers on the whins. But he did not appear. He had gone to the village to talk business with Joe Carney, the skipper of Finn’s fishing boat, the Drumard Maid. Michael wanted to sell the boat, and Joe wanted to buy. Perhaps they had made a deal and gone to the Harbour Bar to seal it.
Caitlin’s gaze shifted from the shadowed loaney to the direction of the harbour at Corrymore, far below her, and the ruins of Killyshannagh Church. Below the green sod and the dark earth down there, unseen from…

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562888

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763203

Katerina Anghelaki Rooke – Selected Poems

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

The Vitos Calendar
To the memory of Nikos Kazantzakis


FIRST DAY
my body became the beginning of a voyage.
Lights on the shore, a funeral procession
for the verdure of summer
the calls of mothers
took an autumnal echo
in the forgiveness of twilight.
I walk as the first rain
comes from the sea
for me the escape — quench of
an ancient thirst — was called death.
may the so winds blow
and slowly mark the orchards of the horizon
that we, the final comrades, shall cultivate.
silent caiques await the morning twilight
in the nightly quietness of the harbor.
The taste of the grape and of the fig
belong to memory now
my body became the beginning of a voyage.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562965

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763521

Neo-Hellene Poets: An Anthology of Modern Greek Poetry

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

PAN
Quiet! Don’t you sometimes hear from deep in the orchard
the Gods of agriculture weeping their green holiday
as flutes sing sweetly to each other?
(in the cisterns the face of autumn still reflecting)
The clear skies didn’t fool me yesterday
I saw Him trying to find his way among the grapevines
His moulted skin shimmering on His back.
He stopped: up high, the moon, malicious, shone.
He tuned His ear to listen to the softly blowing breeze.
His eyes and ears searched for vanished echoes
in that still hour when the night turns numb and frozen
and straight to his lips He brought his reed,
discordant yet so sweet, hatred mixed with laughter,
exotic tune drawing evil from the vines
fast tune dispersing unknown shivers
and yet the dead leaves stood and danced.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562959

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763513

Arrows

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

I told Salvador under my breath that there was a cart waiting for
us not too far away, and asked him whether he could walk. He
couldn’t even talk. I took out a leather bag from under my robe,
tinkling with coins.
“Son! Come here,” I called the torturer who moved quickly at the
sound of money. “You have such a hard life, and you have to eat,
right?” He nodded his assent. “There are so many injustices in this
life, and this is one of them. Look here, this is your lucky day.” I
put the pouch of money into his hands. “It’s yours if you keep
your mouth shut and take us to the nearest exit. Cry for help, and
I’ll wring your soul out through your belly button.”
The man opened his mouth and shut it again.
“Let’s all get out of here, shall we?” I slapped him on the back to
move him to action.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562848

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522

George Seferis – Collected Poems

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

The King of Asini

And the lingering poet, looks at the stones and
wonders
do they really exist
between these erased lines, the edges, the hollows
the contours
do they really exist
here where the rain’s passing meets with the wind
and ravage
they do exist, the movement of life, the shape of tenderness
of those who faded out so strangely in our lives
of those who remained as shadows of waves and thoughts
in the endlessness of pelagos
or perhaps no, nothing remains but the weight
the nostalgia of the weight of an alive existence
there where we remain unsubstantial bending
like branches of the terrible willow tree piled in
the continued despair
while the yellow current slowly carries down rushes
uprooted in the mud
image of a form turned into stone by the sentence
of an everlasting bitterness.
The poet a void.
The sun carrying a shield rose fighting
and from depths of the cave a startled bat
pierced the light like an arrow pierces a shield:
‘Ασίνην τε Ασίνην τε…’ As though it was him
the king of Asini
who we have so carefully searched for on this
acropolis
sometimes touching with our fingers his touch
on the stones.

https://draft2digital.com/book/4279077#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B096TTS37J

Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume VI

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Required Attention
Be careful when you go out; things look so distant,
they almost vanish. The Naval Yard in the soft light,
After the rain, perhaps it involves all your anticipation
to return home without meeting in your way that empty
ice cream cone that was rolled, slowly and carefully, by
the white cane of the blind man.

https://draft2digital.com/book/4278093#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763785

Redemption

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

The taste of her mouth aroused all his instincts, and he wanted
to touch this girl all over. However, they heard the clearing of the proprietor’s
throat and stopped. Hermes pulled back, and she gave him
her best smile, showing a straight line of teeth and a hungry tongue.
They stayed there for another half an hour, and then she
wanted to go.
“What would you like to do now? See a movie?”
He looked at his watch; it was eight o’clock. “Where do you like
to go?”
She suggested they go to see the latest movie in a cinema close
by, and he agreed. They walked to the cinema, and Hermes offered
her his arm. She took the chance and leaned toward him a bit more,
which Hermes loved. They got to the theatre and realized the place
was almost full, so they made their way to the balcony, where they
noticed that it was almost empty. They found two seats. He turned
to look at her, and she took the courage and offered him a long and
passionate kiss. His hunger for her body became evident. She took
his hand and placed it between her legs, a move he took even further
by sliding his hand up and touching her pubic hair. That made her
go wild. He didn’t let go, and the rubbing of his hand inside her
made her move her body left and right with such intensity that she
had an orgasm in a matter of seconds. She then found his erection
and played with him for a minute or two, but he wanted a lot more
than that.
“You like to go?” she asked.
“Where could we go?”
“I know a place.”
He wondered where this place might be, surely not her parents’
house.
“A friend of mine, she whispered, is out of town; I have the key
to her place.”

https://draft2digital.com/book/4172538#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763858

Poodie James

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

“I’m glad to see you’re not hiding, Mr. Clarkson,” Pease said.
Fred hoisted himself up on an elbow and regarded the young
man. “Not hiding and still not talking about myself,” he said.
“I thought perhaps you’d be willing to confirm what I found out
about your background before we go with the story. It was fairly
simple to trace you through the state bar association. You had an
impressive career in the law.”
“Now, why would anyone care about that, Mr. Pease? It’s
ancient history.”
“I suppose no one would care if you hadn’t made yourself a hero
in the train rescue and come so eloquently to the defense of Poodie
James at the council hearing.”
Engine Fred indicated the captain’s chair. “Have a seat. I’ve been
thinking of something that might interest your readers far more than
anything you could write about this old hobo. Want to hear about it?”
“Do I sense the offer of a deal?” Pease said.
Fred’s eyebrows went up. “Does that offend your journalistic
sensibilities?”
“It depends on the nature of the deal and the quality of the
information,” Pease said.
Fred fell silent while he studied Pease’s schoolboy face, its earnestness,
its shock of hair over the forehead, the glasses losing their
struggle to stay in place. Pease returned his gaze without moving
his eyes, without a flicker of expression.
“Do you know the story of Poodie James being attacked and
beaten shortly after he moved to this valley?” Fred said.
“As of two days ago, I do,” Pease told him. “Winifred Stone told
me about it shortly before the council hearing. She directed me to
the clipping in our morgue. Sketchy story. Not much to go on. It’s
interesting that someone was attacking hobos around the same
time. 1927, a long time ago.”
“Matter of perspective,” Engine Fred said. “Seems like yesterday.
Still, it’s been sketchy for me, too, until recently.”
Pease looked at Fred, saying nothing, waiting.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562868

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08W7SHCMV

Kariotakis-Polydouri, The Tragic Love Story

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

For Kariotakis
The young men who came to the deserted island
one night counted themselves and found you missing.
They looked each other in the eyes and no wonder
they shook their heads in sadness.
Many nights they recalled that from your loneliness
a sign of fire you would send and they knew
the sad welcome of the abyss that lighted the roads
and for this they stayed in their familiar places.
Left in their grief, as if fatefully and sorrowfully
hanging from the “rock” of danger.
And when you said goodbye, you, the forever desperate,
they sang a few verses of a traditional dirge.
The young men arrive to the island every year
and they search for the elegy of life in your vacant spot.
In their eyes two tears they maintain for you
and for the new Epoch you have established.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562951

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763459