Semblance of a Bird’s Chirp A bitter bird chirps inside the wood. Semblance of a bird semblance of a chirp. Perhaps a blackbird strike the wood with its beak. It rains, bird has no other refuge, chick-chick on the window, the sound of the rain only louder. However, there is no rain nor window in the wood, only darkness in its viscera and dry pus. Other times, other birds on leaves and branches. The blackbird: look at it, it has found a way to wedge itself intact (From its beak down as a boat in a Lilliputian bottle) and always chick-chick and chick hard to decipher sounds from the invisible bird, like when you hear that God appeared, as in a miracle, to His chosen people.
It was delicious and she washed it down with a sip from a tumbler full of what appeared to be neat spirit. She was sitting in the family’s combination living and dining room where the ornate, antique table was laden with small plates of food. Wise in the ways of Russian dining from having partied with Ukrainians and Polish, she knew that these were only the zakuski, the appetizers, and that a more substantial meal would follow. “No, really, now I’m full up.” At least the food is dampening the effects of the vodka, she thought. “How about you, Paul?” The man referred to as Paul looked up from a plate of bread and sausage and smiled shyly. “Thank you. You are good hosts,” he murmured. “Your Russian is so good. Did you study long in university?” asked Marta of Paul while Misha seemed distracted and regarded Jennifer solemnly. Paul-Volodya did not reply right away and Marta was interrupted by the sound of something bubbling on the stove. The afternoon so far had been wonderful, full of affectionate hugs and cheerful toasts toward Jennifer, friendship in which she reciprocated and in which Paul had been generously included. Their daughter, Nadya, was at school but the couple promised that she would return home very soon. After refreshment, the cousins had spoken of their own hopes to leave the Soviet Union and live in Canada. The nervousness with which they raised the topic and the intensity with which they spoke made Jennifer realize how important this move was to them. They would need help and support in Canada. She didn’t know much about Canadian immigration laws, but wouldn’t they need a sponsor? Someone from within the country—a relative who would vouch for them, promise to provide for them? She thought at first of her mother as the closest relative but had an uneasy feeling these two were grooming their newfound cousin for the role. Yet nagging questions persisted. Were they truly related to her? She wondered at their eagerness. They seemed to have everything here: a private apartment of their own, not too big but with a balcony that gave a view of the playground opposite. Their daughter enjoyed school and Young Pioneers, they said, and they were both working, he as a technician and she as a bus driver. This last gave Jennifer pause as she tried to envision the dainty, polite Marta in the driver’s seat of a soot-black, fume-spewing bus, but she knew that the Soviet Union was ahead of the west in ensuring women joined the work force in many non-traditional jobs. Marta worked shifts so was off-duty right now…
If, one day, I manage to escape, I’ll open a small store in a side street to sell bitter things: tiny taxidermy animals, biographies of poor people, eyelids that never closed and of course, unthoughtful spirit lamps; on the entrance I’ll write, “pay the blind man on the opposite side, he’s the only one who knows”. During the evening I’ll sit by the door with my black hat and a patisserie tray on hand for whoever can understand. And perhaps that funny old woman may return with her faint smile held with pins “I’ve brought it to you” she will say, “she has her own house” and perhaps she means uncertainty or the dead woman or as the Lord may have ordered since the preacher kept on crying out “brothers” and untie Eudokia “silence” she says to me “what’s this and put the wall back to where it belongs”. Now I’m sad that you won’t be able to write to me, my good friend, the envelopes and writing paper are expensive indeed for a dead person (who they unthoughtfully bury in the dampness) yet when I usually think of you it’s as if I get dressed in all the black ashtrays and your mother, let them call her crazy because she always holds an umbrella, since it always rains in the world now, as an old poet would have said, the real stories are very rare. God help us.
Hierodules Past midnight in the cloyed atmosphere of the casino’s underbelly things were not as they seemed I sat at a slot machine trying to synchronize my mind to the machine’s rhythm brain balancing precariously between mild intoxication and growing inebriation alcohol consumption evident on limbs and a loose mind chasing the elusive hit as I heard an alluring, sultry voice. “Hi, baby, how are you?” Young blonde hooker passed by me brushing her voluptuousness languidly against my back voice as sweet as honey dripping with innocence and I, in my mid-sixties took this as a compliment even though it came from the promiscuous and cunning lips of the young blonde hooker my brain reeled in the clutches of alcohol philosophical thoughts and unexpected comparisons The young hierodule for a few dollars could provide my sexual release the casino for a fistful of dollars sold me the ephemeral joy of machine combinations the luck of the draw and hope and the other hierodule the greatest which for a few dollars more sells to its innumerable Johns the safety of Heaven.
insisted, so his uncle and auntie said their farewells at home. Eleni and Hermes met in a nightclub a couple of years ago on the island of Ios, where they were both vacationing. Hermes loved to play with her blonde hair, and he mostly enjoyed letting his eyes dive deep into her blue eyes. He walked toward the deck bar, passing by the pretty tourist girl sunbathing. It was not easy to walk along with all these people sitting or lying around on the deck. He ordered a cold coffee and glanced around. Next to him was an old man drinking his lemonade: tough features, wrinkles on his face, white hair, black circles around his eyes. The old man felt Hermes’ glance and turned toward him: “And where are you from, young man?” “From around here, Uncle,” Hermes answered, imitating the old man’s accent. It was customary to address an older man as “Uncle” when one didn’t know his name. Whenever coming to the island, Hermes liked to talk with an accent close to the locals to conform to their ways as much as possible. His coffee was brewed, and he took a slow sip to check it out. The old man observed his ritual manner, satisfied. “Could I ask you something, Uncle?” Hermes felt the need to kill the silence between them. “Sure. What is it, my son?” “The island, why is it called Crete?” The old man raised his eyebrows. Not many people asked this kind of question. “We call it Crete because it means wines and meats.” Hermes was surprised. He never knew. Did this mean that this island used to be fertile and fruitful, and the people never had to worry about their food? The old man turned and asked him. “What do you do in Athens, my son?” “I attend the university, Uncle. I am graduating this year.” “Oh, you are a sand pebble then.”
Guacaipuro surveyed the damage. “Your god,” he panted, “is evil.” Then he seemed to see something in the shadows of the bushes illuminated by the firelight, and all distress lifted from his countenance. He reached out, but life left him at that moment. He collapsed onto Urquía, his face buried in her bosom. I gawked at them. He had trusted me with her life, and there she was, dead. And he saw her die. I was on my feet. Where had all the air gone? I gasped, trying to suck it in, and stumbled away. My knees buckled, and I held myself by the middle. A shout emerged from the centre of my soul, a long throat-shredding, “No!” She hadn’t converted either. The Spaniards stepped back. I would have liked to see them try and touch his body, chop off his head and take it as a trophy. Something stopped them. Horror, I guess. As they fled uphill, leaving only desolation behind, I felt Benjamin’s big hand on my shoulder. “Coming?” I shot him a loathing look; pain choked me, tears stung my eyes, my head throbbed. I saw in the fleeting expression that crossed his face that that was the last thing he expected from me. He strode away, looking back over his big, swaying shoulders a couple of times. It was not his fault, of course, but at that moment he became the Spaniards, a group I did not want to belong to any longer. My reaction was unjust, and I knew it, but couldn’t bring myself to be like Jesus. Had I ever? The next hours were filled with the numbness of incredulity. I just sat there until the hut was nothing more than a glowing mass of smouldering thatch. Desolation after the storm. Not a breath of hope in the air. Nothing but pain and sorrow. Fragments of the person I…
Behind the family tree of eternity retreats the golden fleece and the tragedy of the distant signal to the center of the inexplicable the heart of zero becomes One having always rained flashes in there tides with enigmatic wavelengths emigrate the alpha-beta of wandering intensifies ink made of stardust groping on the hair of the woman it writes words since the time she was a girl along with the hieroglyphics of dusk quay of the night lampposts of Eros galloping of innocence I walk next to me, over the piers emotions flow in eternity tomorrow is already upon us what can one decipher? Each star is one word on the path to the labyrinth an old wound that doesn’t heal secret keys to the galaxy the covenant of kites many goodbyes thrown out goodbyes without any recipient
Epode III Heavens still reside in the ghetto’s heart yet logos stay imprisoned in the maze of a code and its ever-fast whip like an ape standing outside the big door of salvation bigots holding him at bay and the crystal stars on the horizon sing the hymeneal again. Logos as in a maze of twisted minds is torn between a lustful moon and the freshness of a spring song light of freedom in sunless cells and headmaster still walks around headless or heartless as he’s commanded by his insatiable greed who sees value in the control in the protocol and in the fear fed to the mortals like manna. Troglodytes of the Middle Ages.
…lack of ambition contrasted remarkably with that of Clifford Hamilton who had different aims on human brains. Yet when Caitlin thought about it, she could not avoid the conclusion that maybe Liam’s desire to fill young brains with learning was more worthy, if less prestigious, than Clifford Hamilton’s desire to open them up for medical probing. She admired Liam all the more for his altruism. He was indeed a true disciple of his idol, Father Padraig. Beyond the school the pebble-dashed, two-storey rectory stood back a bit from the lane. Lamplight shone through the window of Padraig’s room upstairs; the rest of the house was in darkness. Padraig shared the rectory with Father Donagh Costello, the priest of the neighbouring parish “over the bridge” in Aughnashannagh. The pious widow, Brid O’Flaherty, lived in the same house as servant and cook to the two parish priests. Caitlin paused outside the rectory, then passed by and climbed the rough-cut steps to the church. Aligned along the ridge, Our Lady Star of the Sea church occupied a spread of flat ground covered with the same beach-pebbles as the footpath from the road. Caitlin paused in the doorway at the west end of the church, stayed for a moment by the clarity and peace of the evening. She gazed out over the gravestones and the grass to the errant line of the cliff-top. Dark grey was the sea beyond, and blue the sky above. The blueness of the sky paled to limpid opalescence where the sun had set. No sound. No movement. Only a shiver in the short grass where the breeze blew across it. Inland the evening shadows darkened the purple hills, the green fields, the grey stone walls, the yellow flowers of spreading whins. Lights in farmhouse windows twinkled like stars. Thin twines of smoke uncoiled from cottage chimneys. Caitlin felt a surge of joy within her. No-one knows how much I love this land, she thought. She opened the church door with a click of the latch and closed it gently behind her. The hush of the evening out of doors deepened between the white walls and the dark, varnished roof-beams of the church. Three small windows high up along each wall admitted light by day but they were gloomy now. Below each window a picture hung. Padraig had told Caitlin their stories. Along the right-hand wall that overlooked the sea the first picture showed Jesus calling the disciples Andrew and John as they worked at their nets by the shore; the second showed Him in a crowded boat ordering the stormy waters to be calm; and the third showed Him walking upon the sea, holding an outstretched hand to Peter. Along the opposite wall the first picture was of Jesus pulling ears of corn as He walked through a field with…
…people in the movies revive others in these situations, so he plugs the boy’s nose and blows into his mouth with all his might, once, twice, and then asks Anthony to compress the chest, until after a minute or so the boy gasps and expels water from his mouth as he comes to his senses. Anthony and Eteocles turn him face down as he continues to cough and spit out water, and in a few moments he is well enough to recognize the women. “Mom” he says quietly, looking up at one of the two women. She sobs and embraces him. The other woman can’t stop thanking and praising the two young heroes. She takes a couple of figs from her bag, peals them, and gives one to each of the boys. Eteocles and Anthony bite into the sweet fruit and thank the woman. As they walked back to their football game, Anthony looks at his cousin as well as all the other boys who crowd around and ask Eteocles where he learned to resuscitate drowning victims. “At the movies,” Eteocles tells them, his chest swelling with pride and happiness. He has brought someone back to life.
Manolis Aligizakis 