Toward the End The night guard said he didn’t know. Cars were lined along the shore with their headlights on. The river, lit in some places, flowed fast. The soldier was holding the woman by her hair; the woman was naked. The frogs sang in the night perforated by yellow dots. One by one, we hid behind the trees. We had our watches and waited for our end while we kept a piece of cotton between our teeth. Then, the handsome trumpeter appeared high up in the lit window of the tower next to the escapee with the big flag. Then, nothing was left but a general, iconic friendship, the wiping of the knife on the coat, the planting of the lemon tree in the garden.
Balance Capture of a blue piece from the vastness of the sky to compliment the miracle of a man, or a woman, your task and the word failure doesn’t exist. This balance between the ethereal images, and the grossness of the flesh becomes the link which embarks from the top of your spirit to the tip of your brush, and is displayed on your adoring canvas. The link which ties the depths of your soul to the zenith of your marvels this equilibrium, and your Cretan sun always there, gifting with his rays passion in movement the song of the nightingales endlessness of your glance to the far side of the galaxy. Here the ephemeral becomes infinite. Here the end becomes a starting point. Here the gross turns into abstract. Here the stop point becomes perpetual. Here the ever small becomes Gigantic. Here man becomes Titan. Here your passion becomes medium. Here your flesh turns into spirit. Here your spirit melts into the Godly.
New House He wanted, he said, to build a house far away from the city hustle and the bustle of modern life, a house to uphold stature, forbearance, patience of the contractor, the last house he’d built before his time came when he’d move to his permanent residence, but this house, he wanted it to be airy and sunny, comfortable, and kind like its owner and after he finished building it he called his pals, walked the grounds, inspected all the details outside and inside the house too when the owner revealed he only regretted that he never thought to include in the plans a cistern into which he’d collect the rainwater for his flowers which he didn’t like to leave thirsty when the time came for his last farewell and you said, he too followed the steps of incidentals who come and pass and leave nothing behind while they hope for a reward in the lustrous luxury of the afterlife
When the two arrived at the airport in the taxi, later than expected and breathless, Hank rushed up to Jennifer with the words that made her blood freeze. “Jen, Chopyk knows and he’s furious.” Hank noted the look of horror and the way Volodya grabbed her hand. “How did he find out?” She didn’t have to ask again; she could see the answer in Hank’s eyes. “What was I supposed to do? He cornered me. He thought I’d done something to Paul.” “But I told him that Paul was going with me to Tula.” Her exasperation was turning into a bubble of fear that she could physically feel in her gut. “Well, geez, you could have told me that…I didn’t know what to answer so I told him the truth—that Paul was staying in the Soviet Union.” He backed away from Jennifer’s anger. “He was going to find out today anyway. How were you going to hide his disappearance on the plane?” “The same way we did before! It worked—remember, you idiot?” Her voice rose above a shout but then she realized they were still standing in the airport doorway, and she forced herself to stop. But Hank continued, talking over her. “Listen, I think you should talk to him right now, get on the offensive because I didn’t tell him everything and I can’t figure out how much he knows.” This rapid fire exchange in English left Volodya behind, but he was picking it up quickly. “Let’s go meet your Professor Chopyk,” he said to Jennifer. “We tell him everything and get his blessing.”
And along the many lands a precious beloved place takes the soul of man through his eyes and his hands as wholesome and as bloomed is this little tree only in this land it blooms better than in any other place as the wax is made of honey in the honeycomb and as great people live behind narrow fences so long as the masters make laws governed by logic to control the people’s wings and tie down their feet so long as in flowerless ravines and on rocks with no verdure in the orchards and in the faraway skies love is fed by hatred and by anger and by war and the Paradise is guarded by the sword or by the fire
VII You bloomed under the sun that will go down someday and I sustain myself under the sun that hasn’t risen yet. Darkness is taking the space between us. The sea still gesticulates in your chest time has been trapped in your lips twilight perches between your legs the wind fades away and rewrites your dress. Your negative mould petrified on our sandy space.
I, too, was part of the jungle. Our lovemaking grew into a world of dreams. Apacuana had the power to take me to a hitherto unknown God, beyond the Church, into an expanse of uncharted feelings as miraculous as any star-filled sky. Her body became a refuge, a place for revival, like an inexhaustible spring of healing waters. It was a gate past which I discovered a world where loneliness was banished. I was shocked to discover she was part of me, as much as Bartolomé was, perhaps more. When we lay in one another’s arms, I forgot to think before I spoke. I told her things that would have never have left my lips before I knew her. It astonished me that we could learn compassion from our own tenderness. This was not a lesson in a book, or a lecture from a priest, and it was certainly not everyone’s duty to learn it, but pleasure was natural to her, and she taught me that my tongue could talk to her in ways I had never imagined possible. And it was these conversations of pure touch, with our expanding vocabulary of caresses, that I yearned for, that I craved, as much as the need to satisfy my own desire. And so I came to value frankness as a form of kindness. She loved me for who I was, not for what I represented. The truth was simple with her. She began to trust me with her thoughts. She talked to me, and she told me how she feared for her future, for the future of her people, and especially for Matyba and Padumay. Apacuana was wise beyond her years, perhaps wise beyond her sex. Or were all women wiser than men and men were trained by other men not to see? That morning, at the base of that tree, as we lay staring at the sky, I suddenly asked myself what, in God’s name, was I doing with her? She must have read my mind, for she turned to me. “If my bleeding stops,” she said, “will you stay?”
Five days of hard drinking had passed since the killings, and I saw drunken people sleeping in the most unlikely places. I left the hut for bare necessities only, but Apacuana came to see me several times…
Barge The red barge rocks slowly its mind is not completely made up to the right of the light to the left of the light? The red barge full of wood chips on its way to the paper mill its mind dwells in ambivalence to the right or the left? Your eyes are like a storm tears and fulgurations from the left to the right or from the right to the left?
Oh God, there are all so uncertain like a stone with no mystery or like the one who rediscovers his lost money in the wasted time. Travellers bring some flowers to the hasty funerals in train stations, while beggars run for a few coins behind ballooned outfits. Oh, if I could have my own telephone booth or cleaner false teeth perhaps many killings could have been avoided or perhaps they would had been noticed before they took place. Everything else will remain unknown like a sudden ring of the bell from someone who has already gone away; a light smell that vanished before you could remember some steam from your childhood chamomile that many natural disasters haven’t dispersed yet. Oh, if I had the power, I could make a hand for each street beggar or easy puzzles for the exhausted; I could create a talkative cemetery that each evening would narrate old stories to us or I’d put the bed-sheets out to air like in a shipwreck. Therefore I am crossed out like the miracle that makes life more uncertain.
Salome The guards brought to her his head on a silver platter. His eyes shut as if dreaming and his lips still warm. Drop of blood, dripped from his severed neck, a stain onto the white sheet that wrapped his head. She took in her hands the lifeless face, neared hers to the still warm lips, leaned down and kissed them. Her face had an expression of desperation along with satanic satisfaction. “I after all kissed your lips, John” she whispered, her eyes full of tears; “I had to have you killed, but I kissed them.” To what extend the passion and craziness of love can reach, my love? You got up from the table and got ready to leave. Could I have killed you to have you totally mine? But instead I picked the used plates, your glass I brought it lustfully, slowly close to my lips I licked its circumference and finally, with an indescribable satisfaction I drank the last drop of wine left in it. Perhaps I didn’t kiss you good night however that last drop from your glass was equally satisfying as the seven veils of Salome’s dance.
Manolis Aligizakis 