Visit of a Thought I’ve been trying to sleep for the last three hours. August heat sweat of the mind and thoughts, all around, like mosquitos, poke it. What has happened to me? They rarely come during the day now I surely feel happy or to be exact: I forbid such visits. As soon as by chance a thought comes to my mind it soon invites the other, for just a little while, a short visit, you know all this, when voila: caravans of inter-related images charge inside of me seeking a permanent habitation. I don’t want them. Then sealing the borders safely, I end it. Because I’m not American, nor can my lands feed so many migrants.
Nora never let Joe know that they had been espied that night. She continued to write her long letters every week, letters in which she tried to hide her sadness and her melancholy and her bitter disappointment. Three months after Joe’s departure she was pregnant again, and that added to her bitterness. But she hid her gall from Joe. She did not want him to think she was accusing him of failing her. Joe wrote sad, serious letters with only an occasional light or amusing remark. But they were letters full of tenderness and love, like those he used to write before he learned of Nora’s marriage. It was almost as if the marriage had never happened, as if Joe and Nora were the lovers they had been before, with their own marriage to look forward to when the war was over. Nora realised that this was a fantasy to which Joe clung to help him through the bloody butcher days of war, the black, tense nights of watch and wait and pray. She gave him what he needed. She wrote what he wanted to read. She almost came to believe in it herself. Nor was it difficult. That they were both as deeply in love as ever was true and needed no deception. That they could ever enjoy that love outside of their passionate letters was where they lived in a soothing fantasy. As time passed Joe’s letters became more morbid. He was losing his friends one by one but kept referring to a very old companion who was with him still, who never left his side. This old companion was never named, and it was some time before Nora realised who the companion was. In one of his letters Joe wrote: He’s been with me since that day your father pulled me out of the harbour. He fought over me with Dr Starkey when I had pneumonia and he lost that time. He wants me to go with him somewhere, but I just turn to him and say, “I’m sorry, friend; but I have this girl back in Ireland and I’m going to her first. We have a lot to do, this girl and I. I hope you can wait a bit longer.” He’s waiting, my darling, but he’s becoming impatient. How long can this war last?’ Joe was excited about a posting to a Buckley-class frigate, the HMS Bullen. On 6 December 1944, the Bullen was torpedoed by U-Boat U-775, in the frigid waters of Pentland Firth, northwest of Scotland. The Bullen broke in two and sank in two hours. Of the one hundred and sixty-eight crew members on board, seventy-one went down with the ship. One of those lost was Chief Petty Officer Joseph Ignatius Carney. His turn had come. And this time there was no Michael Carrick to pull him out of the icy water. A few weeks later Nora gave birth to a daughter whom she christened Josephine Siobhan.
Swan We lost ourselves in unconsecrated churches since the days of Leonardo. On the wall we hanged the beautiful woman of the loiterer icon of an ancient youth. In lakes wedged between the beard of rocks we saw our strange features afraid of the thunderous flapping of eagle wings. What we recounted wasn’t ours. Coppers of the holy oak in the trenches of red hills that shatter the lance of winter. Morning dance that hid in the viscera of the oak and in the frowning of the motionless stone. Our struggle our grief buried in the unstruck chord of a lyre that will brake on your touch.
Hermes felt so overwhelmed by the euphoria of the company that his pride rose again. The blood of the immortals that ran through his veins was the Same blood that ran in the veins of these people, with their hairy chests and their large hands that could crush rocks and turn them to dust. The party wound down slowly as the early dawn hours approached. Hermes’ group boarded the same bus that brought them there and returned to their village. Days went by, and he still couldn’t have enough of admiring this and that, observing ways of the locals, enjoying everything that came along. Then, one evening, while Hermes was out on a long walk, his uncle called from Athens, leaving him a message that the exam results had been posted and the graduation ceremony was scheduled for a few days later, and the time had come for Hermes to leave his village. The next morning, he went to the city and reserved a ticket for the boat ride to Piraeus.
Memory Father came home late He didn’t say good evening Mother was concerned with her children She didn’t pay attention to him The children enjoyed her care They didn’t pay attention that he didn’t say good evening He had his hands clasped behind him had talked to the rain in the harvested fields behind the woodsman’s cabin He had a double barrel shotgun across his shoulder He stood near the window alone and when a strong lightning strike lit the glass I saw the cross of the window incised in his forehead Perhaps we learned of that separation tonight perhaps the same cross is incised since then in the lit wall of our silence
Sadness of the Dusk The roses of the dusk bloomed again tonight golden, rosy, and purple they faded tonight shedding their leaves as I viewed them every evening and every time I drink their fragrant dew from their bloomed dawn I get intoxicated in their soft and last breath I consume each joy to its best. Yet upon gazing the dusk tonight, I thought of our love, that someday it will end and when the roses of the dusk bloomed golden, rosy, and purple as they faded tonight shedding their leaves this evening I got saddened.
The 25th Year of his Life He goes to the tavern quite often where they met last month. He asked, but they had nothing to tell him. From their words, he understood that he had met with a completely unknown person, one of the many unknowns and questionable youthful faces that passed through there. However, he goes to the tavern quite often, at night, and he sits and stares at the entrance, he stares at the entrance until he gets tired. Perhaps he may walk in. Perhaps he may come tonight. For nearly three weeks, he has done this. His mind has become sick with lust. The kisses have stayed on his mouth. All his flesh suffers constantly from the desire. The touch of that body is all over him. He wants to make love to him again. It is understood that he tries not to reveal himself. But sometimes he just doesn’t care. After all, he knows what he’ll get himself into, and he is okay with it. It is not unlikely that this life of his will get him into a disastrous scandal.
…honour due to the ancient beauty and I asked the primeval wisdom about the absurd way of modern life and I was told by the eternal soul of the immortals that consumerism had taken modern life in its grip and I noticed the empty glances of the young women and men that only knew of lust and sexual pleasure then I realized the destiny of the anchorite was meant for me, and I asked whether in a future time, the ancient beauty could be restored, and the virgin of the Parthenon shed tears seeing the tourists flocking like harpies and inauspicious signs of modern life that I searched without finding any resolution nor catharsis among the yellow-haired tourists. Without fear, I asked the ancient beauty but I received no answer to please my soul.
The bottle had been opened but little drunk from it. “As you can see, I haven’t been overindulging.” He pulled the cork out of the neck, poured two glasses and handed one to Caitlin. “Thank you, Padraig.” As Caitlin placed the glass of wine on the table beside her, she noticed an old, soiled envelope. “This is addressed to my father,” she said, turning to look at Padraig. “Yes, your father gave it to me when I left Corrymore to go to university.” “You’ve kept it all this time?” Caitlin idly picked up the envelope. “Yes. Seven years I’ve had it. You can read the letter if you wish.” “No, not if it’s personal.” “No, it is nothing private or secret that you have no right to read. It is addressed to your father after all, not to me.” Padraig took the envelope from Caitlin, removed the letter from inside and unfolded it. “It makes for rather disturbing reading though.” Intrigued, Caitlin accepted the letter from Padraig and started to read with difficulty the untidy scrawl in which the letter was written. It was dated “Kyle of Lochalsh, Ross and Cromarty, Scotland, 11th March, 1902.” Caitlin turned to the last of the letter’s several pages; it was signed by Dr. Hamish Graham. Dear Mr MacLir, Thank you for your letter of 2nd ult. I apologise for my tardy reply but my practice has been busy of late, as is not unusual at this time of year. You requested any information I might have concerning the boy Padraig, over and above what little I was able to communicate to you during our brief meeting in November. You tell me that you have formally adopted Padraig as your son, so I can appreciate your desire to learn more about the laddie. However, until the month of July, 1899, we knew very little, not even his surname which he refused to divulge for fear, I believe, of being returned to the care of his uncle from which he and his mother had been so cruelly expelled. That part of Padraig’s unhappy history you are already familiar with. What transpired in the month of July following Padraig’s arrival in Kyle was a disturbing court case in which a farm labourer from a community twelve statute miles from Plockton, a man of well-established bad character, was tried and convicted to hang for the brutal rape and strangulation of a vagrant woman who had been given permission to sleep in the hay in a barn belonging to this man’s employer. At the rapist’s trial, about which I read in several newspapers, both local and national, it was revealed that the woman’s father, the Rev. Magnus MacArtan,
the day passes the hour passes society laughs the excuses are retained yet, the one who committed the crime and went to sleep didn’t sense that dawn came and he woke up and walked about in the horrible darkness of death (his mouth is already full of dirt) and of the one who lied and acted unjustly and slapped they will pay for it and their children will do so too up to the fifth generation there is God hearts and kidneys are examined and next to the crippled justice of man the Fury hides nested deep in the guilty man merciless and unforgiving who doesn’t care about officialities and titles that good life brings but in God’s name, it doesn’t care and it punishes harshly the brainless and timid who commit
Manolis Aligizakis 