THE GENIUS OF THE LAMP (In the Light of the Lamp by Nicolae Tonitza1) For a while I have begun to recognize the passage through worlds, As the beginning of a second’s beginning, An imperceptible break fleetingly smelling miracles, This is how I know today that from my eyes The genius of the lamp, tamed (maybe by the grace of the evening, of the curtains, or of the girl), Comes back into the painting Challenging the destiny he has in Oriental tales, And slim and crepuscular again, It converges from all the corners of the world, In order to keep vigil, protectively, Over the effervescent kindness that unites the being and the book, The passion sipping up all that has been and all that is…
….I look at the sun: a black spot where from now on my blinking will rest the mourning seal will accompany it I hopelessly stare at the world I sob like a homeless child and I keep fighting – theirs is the game – with earthly and heavenly gods bury half of my life oh God thunder curses the mills of prayers take his body sacrificed for them the other half of my soul I offer to hell parting is a mute mother but ephemeral whisper of lament spring that gushes out from the foot of the rock city thunders on sky’s bell and until we remember the warmth of your palm prayers chew like gums we ruminate your thunderous life unveiled in the blinded night with flowers we cover the wound of the earth then we walk in darkness on our lost paths to live what was written to our pilgrimage place Mother in small petals on the boundary of the sly and in the blue of your eyes God has stolen them –
17th DAY or ANOTHER ELEGY Quietness on the first line today only they didn’t mention how many scorched bodies they buried in the sand. I wondered whether the desert rejects corpses of foreigners like our desolate bodies. Twilight. I read letters from the days between the two World Wars. Pasternak, Rilke, Tsvetayeva correspond with words and kiss each other not knowing whether they’ll ever meet.
Routine Often you said we needed to change our habits a new beginning to commence a new purpose to seek hopping to discover hope and its elements while all along you remained resting in lush recliner and always upheld your beliefs while tightly in hand you held the recliner’s lever
Caitlin has repented. She has accepted God and Christ. She came to me of her own free will, Finn. Jesus Himself said that ‘there shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance.’” “This house is no church, Padraig,” Finn said. “You needn’t preach a sermon. Joy there might be in your airy, fairy-story heaven, but your soul-saving here brings nothing but sorrow and sickness and ill-will.” Padraig made as if to object, but Finn would not stop in his bull’s rush. “Caitlin has become a nervous and sickly wreck. Ask Jinnie there. She’ll tell you. A strong, healthy, independent, life-loving girl reduced to a headachy, lack-lustre prissy. Is that one of your miracles? Is that the kind of transformation that makes you proud and causes joy in heaven? Damn your miracles. Damn your pride and your heavenly joy. And damn you too, Padraig. Damn you for your treachery; your baseness; your snivelling, spineless, milk-and-water cowardice.” Finn was shouting in a passionate rage. Anger had possessed him, and he did not pause to think of what he was saying. Mother Ross had not believed him capable of such anger, and with Padraig above all. She left lying on the kitchen table the bread she had buttered for the priest and slipped unnoticed into the scullery. She stood in front of the sink, holding tightly to the rim of it, unable to do anything, while Finn’s lashing tongue continued to scourge Padraig in the kitchen. “You would not love Caitlin like a man. You would not take her as a man would when she offered herself to you. She was too much of a red-blooded woman for your puling sanctity. So now you are trying to water her down to your own thin gruel. You cannot marry her and so you want to make a mincing virgin out of her. A useless nun. A body of dry bones and shrivelled veins and a mind as free and lively as a clod of clay. Damn you, Padraig, I say again. Damn you, damn you, damn you.” Finn’s loud shouting died to a hoarse whisper, but the fierce anger flashed from his eyes and glowered in the dark cloud of his haggard face. He seemed to be struggling to overcome a powerful desire to vent his anger physically on Padraig’s thin, milk-white body. He was obviously having difficulty in bringing himself under control. Then in a somewhat calmer voice he said, “You have destroyed Caitlin’s happiness with your missionary mumbo-jumbo. You and your type are not concerned about human happiness, but human ‘salvation’—whatever that unfortunate word might mean. Salvation from what? Salvation for what?”
When it was over, Poodie reached for his notebook and wrote. “Come see me.” “I can’t Poodie.” He took the notebook back and scribbled, “I want to see you.” “No, Poodie,” Marcie said. “You’re my friend.” She saw tension in his jaw. His hand closed around her wrist. “That hurts,” she said. He tightened his grip, then let go and tried with his eyes to hold her there. She began to walk. Back at the edge of the bandstand he remembered dances at the school and made a bow. Marcie curtsied, and went off with her football player. Poodie stayed near the drums until the band stopped playing and the dancers went home. He helped the drummer carry his cases outside and stood waving as the bus rolled out of the parking lot, then started gathering bottles. Pulling his wagon home through the darkness, he felt his heart pounding. It was like the rhythm of a drum.
Meeting the Cosmos I’m stressed over my reawakened youth that brings life to lightning bolts rain of meteorites made of unearthly music imaginary souls that were never born rebel shattering the distance of a perforated world. Utopia is the wisdom we didn’t understand gift in the heart of humanity time has come to express the unsaid torch bearers of loneliness and dreams initiates of the jump into chaos wandering walkers on the dark side of the brain prophets and searchers of knowledge that we received the irreversible time has come to meet the Cosmos.
Perfection Stress of the day evaporates fog over the lonely grave sites of long forgotten friends that no one ever visits and I embrace your delicate waist as we walk in rhythm alike sounding heart beats entwined fingers play the same music and the nightingales conclude at this moment you and I perfection
…she could stir her shaking hands imperceptibly trying in her foggy mind to recall images of her past greatness to the day that with slow steps she moved, they moved her, to the old folk’s home three children were born inside this room, descendants of an honourable family that vanished no none of them ever lived, one of them emigrated to America the other had a horrible death, a drunkard, and the third one is still somewhere as a lighthouse keeper here, yes, inside this room an immoral hand murdered that brave man to punish anarchy personally, he said, and the poplar leaned and died and that foggy stain on the floor there by the corner is the blood that was shed, like a river, from the wound…
Early Years Laughing benevolence our soles splashed into small water pools filled by moving life and Further away, our mother stooped, Mothers always drank bitterness, and collected sea snails and abalone My brother, my Fate’s choice moved his hand swiftly to grab the little crab Before it took refuge in the crevasse only a crab could see and We lived in fear, for our father was in a land unknown to our little world, exiled, away from the pangs of the police informants: such was our luck that early in life we tasted the bitter orphan waters yet like tree branches we stretched our limbs against the elements and like birds prematurely, we grew wings
Manolis Aligizakis 