excerpt

“A youth called Marcus and his sister Deborah.”
“Go and inform Father Jerome, pronto while I’ll call the
RCMP,” Sister Gladys said to which the other nun responded
by saying no word but by running to the door and stairs that led
upstairs to Father Jerome’s room.
“What’s going on Sister Gladys?” Anton asked, “I know
the youth Marcus and his sister too…”
“I’m afraid I have to inform you, although I’d prefer Father
Jerome did this, of certain things which took place last nigh,”
Sister Gladys said as she finished dialing the local police.
Anton stood silent waiting for the nun to continue. His
face didn’t present anything other than surprise at the news he
heard.
“Last night Mr. Jonas a murder took place within the walls
of this building,” she said.
“A murder?”
“Yes Mr. Jonas, a murder; Father Thomas was murdered,
there behind that door,” she said pointing at the door Sister Anna
had gone through.
“Father Thomas, murdered? Who killed him?”
“That is a matter of the RCMP now…and these two kids
gone this morning…” Sister Gladys added.
Before Anton could say anything else, George the Cretan
cook came in and seeing Anton with Sister Gladys he joined them.
“Good morning to you both, what’s up?” his voice was as
cheerful as it could be.
“Things aren’t so happy here today, George,” Anton told
him.
“What happened? Why the long faces?” he asked seeing
Sister Gladys’ frowned face and the furrow between Anton’s
eyebrows.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763602

Georg Trakl, as if in the famous Salzburg
of the Austrian Tyrol, where he saw the light
for the first time,
he never found joy anywhere, never
he spent his childhood in boredom
as he anticipated the time of knowledge
which arrived, it’d be better if it didn’t,
when he lost his mind
yes: he never agreed with them, the proud man
never accepted
the fate and habits people have
as soon as he realized, painfully enough, what means
to be alive
he had no other longing but to escape, to go away
that longing, his grief you could say, never left him
nothing could console him
nothing entertained him, nothing made him
forget for a while
not Vienna
with its wide avenues
the beautiful cafes
the gardens the lakes with ducks
not even the legendary
innumerable beauties
the hidden
and truly unforgettable treasures…

https://draft2digital.com/book/3744799#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763734

Trickery
She’s gone except for silence
that always stays for last
and you walk barefoot
to muffle the sound of your
footsteps on the tile floor
with your fingers
you tap on the table
to hear noises from the forest
this silent afternoon
when all sounds
dwell in absence
only the sun walks in
through the open blinds
mimicking your noiseless steps

https://draft2digital.com/book/3747032#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1771715987

Long-listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards

2023 Longlist Announcement

Coincidences
So when evening came I thought that finally
the end was here, I mean to say that since so many
things occurred inside me, I didn’t need to choose
until the hallway was filled with undefined misery
and only the old servant woman passed mistrustfully
like the blind who collect all the sounds or like
the importance the sick child suddenly gives to dusk
so that since that moment he won’t ever forget; then
the harmonica stopped playing on the above floor
mother got too old
poor kneeling people found the door to another life
but they remained outside like simple talk that has
no wings to break our hearts or if they didn’t notice
the blood as I was playing with my hat; it was only
a simple coincidence like music in the beyond
that seeks what poetry silences on earth.

https://draft2digital.com/book/4051627

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763564

ÜBERMENSCH’S HOPE
With gifts from Mars, the Übermensch’s hope
lights fires in our hearts
till longing becomes flesh
and the oak bends down before the mushroom
and you, symbol of bravery, unerring
shield of freedom, are degraded
by the weak and crafty merchants
like the worms that eat the fallen lion’s carcass.
Gone is the beast with its proud talons
that frightened earth and sky, gone are
the walls painted by gunpowder and blood,
but if these verses could survive
and live as you have lived, they’d sing
for you and shatter those who ravaged you.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562959

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

excerpt

On Saturday morning he talked to the pair about a trinket he’d
admired. Would they pick it up while he wrote some postcards?
Johnny retrieving the car, Ace stuffed the last of his money into the
girl’s hand. It totalled a few thousand U.S. dollars.
– Buy yourself something nice, girl.
Midnight lifted her dress and inserted the roll into a place it was
unlikely to be discovered.
– I get you a special present, she said. Something to remember me.
But Ace would never receive the gift — or so he believed as he
stood on the balcony and watched the rental speed away. He hurriedly
filled a suitcase and flagged the airport shuttle.
The following year was a prosperous one for Courier North. Commodity
prices had spiked and the mines were reopening. Neal broke
his vow and married a Filipina half his age. He’d met Conchita at
Sally’s and decided to keep her.
Ace began feeling poorly just before freeze-up. Tests confirmed
the doctor’s suspicions.
Neal bought him out and hired a young pilot to handle the longer
flights. Ace retired to his cabin on the banks of the river, passing the
time feeding the deer and listening to the wolves howl. Sometimes
his old friend would fly low, skimming the treetops, an aerial
how-do.
Nights he couldn’t sleep, Ace would sometimes upend the box of
photos and spread them out on the table. It was while rummaging
through his memories that Midnight’s last words came back to him:
I get you a present to remember me.
What could it have been? he wondered. But then the light began
to fade, and it didn’t matter anymore.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562874

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0980897971

II
With a virgin crystal vision and a
dream underarm lighting his thoughts
nascent creativity of the poet
throws his diaphanous sight
to the four edges of the cosmos
identifying his future in the brightest
petals of the rose, and in the sweetest
whisper of the trickling rivulet,
the young poet observing a future.
He stands eloquently unfettered
by the banality of modern stupidity
he stands and records the unspent
grace and its splendid view
being incarcerated by bigots.
Events of the ancient night
parade in front of his retina and
are repeated with new intensity as
the Gates of Heaven still divide
troglodytes in clans and classes in
powerful wealth and
pious benevolence: concepts
embedded deep in souls
and in the stanzas of this hymn.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978186583

Philemon and Baucis

Plundering didn’t touch our made of sticks hut
dark blue river that encircled us
didn’t make a dent in the conflagration of the city
we laid our limbs
onto the covers of the sun
cared by the sob of our hands
born in idolatry and grace
If we got whipped by the spring windstorm
it was because the winters
opened and shut around us like Symplegades
our unspoken hour bloomed among the cypresses
we gazed the trees that with no tie nor watch
listened to the flow of their sap
stretching their fingers with selfless supplication
and when the gods arrived we welcomed them
because we imagined people like them
not being lucky to ponder
on the uncounted discretion
we didn’t think of death as our Fate
we who have known our forgetfulness
Now our silence a roof over the nakedness of time.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562939

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763408

nine

Twenty-first century
last century of real-life
twenty years with the internet
the digital era
reality is crashed
the number 2 digital Earth is created
with 5G technology
we buy a lot using logarithms
we buy our house
for the second time
(to be sure)
as the mirrored existence is bargained
and the human DNA
is slowly transformed.
The rubber band of the border
stretches over the cosmos
it turns into a cable
of Hertzian wavelengths
it becomes Bluetooth
infinite signal among
the innumerable cohabitants of the Universe
who we shall meet
perhaps
their satellites speak among them
and talk about us
perhaps the advanced radars speak
and search for the true second Earth.
Perhaps
perhaps
perhaps
it flows
it flows
nothing, but nothing flows.
we hide in social media
we hide in the QR code
we become digital supermen
we fall in love and talk
to millions of friends
with closed mouth
one hand holds the spoon
and stirs the earthly soup
nothing, but nothing
flows.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/192676370X