Descendants of Ignorance More and more of the deep monologue of forgetfulness the concept of the world is a harvest fluttering something like the result of a vigil utopia steps out of its portrait and walks away emptyhanded in the display of emotions each day and a new sea inside us motionless, we, the descendants of ignorance, move the voices, the names, the history of waves aren’t coming from the outside they are the love of a heart that faces the miracle the alchemy of souls that turns the earth around as the anchor of hopelessness floats between the inexistence and infinity
thirteen 2313 (The Great Homo Digitalis collects all the new scientific discoveries. Based on a primeval plan he convinces everyone that he is the Antichrist. All religions submit to One, Holy, Catholic, and Universal Church)
The Victor He unlocked his dark room hesitantly to try once more to hear the sound of his footsteps on the snow white stone pavement of day All expected him to come out through the sun’s door He wore a golden denture of light and tried to learn off by heart a few green leaves but he felt that this way his empty mouth was more visible and for this reason he neither spoke nor smiled The others listened to their cheering They never sensed that he stayed silent Then he stooped down he took a stone and went after the last loyal dog who followed him The people raised him on their shoulders in the sunshine And like that raised above their heads no one saw him crying
Experts Pundits left after doling out negative expertise asserting no prescription but it can’t be done pundits had their turn and in the middle of the plaza we stood alone holding hands and celebrating thoughts that nothing can go wrong nothing is unaccomplished when you hold onto the stars when you float in dreams the achroous when you color on water when you walk
While the unlikely duo of Hank and Lona had been parting company, Jennifer and Volodya had also stood in the shadow of the exit sign once again making their goodbyes. “Lona offered to take me to New York with her,” Volodya told her, “but I refused…” “Of course,” Jennifer replied stiffly. “It would mean yet another border crossing and you don’t want that, now do you?” Volodya’s face creased in a huge grin. “That’s not the reason I refused, my amazing woman,” he said. He was teasing her, she realized. He doesn’t know what thin ice he’s skating on. “She said she will contact me when my painting is sold. Ech, but I don’t think she will—if the painting sells for more than she paid me, then why would she let me know? She’s a business woman, right?” He took Jennifer’s hands in his, kissed them, hoisted his backpack onto his shoulders and walked backwards through the automatic doors still holding her gaze. Then he vanished into the humid Montreal evening. In Vancouver, it was obvious that some of the baggage had been inspected yet again. Jennifer saw almost a full roll of sticky tape covering the top of Chopyk’s suitcase as if the bag had not closed properly after the Customs had poked through it. She couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. One student missing and three artworks smuggled. Whatever happened, it had been the trip of a lifetime—though just not a lifetime she would care to repeat. “Whoever goes through first should look for our bus,” called Chopyk. “Probably the driver will hold up a sign.” It seemed like yesterday when she had been the first one through the gate at Sheremetev and the adventure had begun. This time, she lagged behind, reluctant to face the world. Carefully, she propped her things up on a baggage cart. When she finally passed through the sliding doors right behind Linda, she noticed someone waving, someone with black bristly eyebrows and an armful of flowers. The man was not waving at Linda. It had been so long since they had been together, and so much had happened to her in the last three weeks, that she almost did not recognize her estranged husband. “Michael, what are you doing here?” Despite herself, a full, warm feeling dispelled the black cloud, if only for a moment.
Caterwauling* Do you know what it means, my love? I won’t tell you. I’ll let you discover it on your own. How long you have for me? How long will my hands explore your body? How many different paths shall I mark on your body tonight? And how much more of your body will remain undiscovered that we’ll work on later? And when we’re done with this planet shall we go to another star? When shall I find out about this? Will you ever tell me? Will you ever tell me the truth?
The call male cats do to attract the females close to them.
Desires Wilted, fiery carnation red colored hope painted by the sun’s endless caress two empty soup bowls two empty wine glasses the cicadas’ conflagration life full of desires. Thirst, so much thirst and not a single fountain.
“Habeas corpus . . .” The bulk of Buttivant is behind him somewhere, praying in Latin. Which becomes other tongues, thick and throaty. The sonorities go droning on and on, right through his heart, his thorax. The chair starts sliding into a horizontal position and at the edge of his vision he can glimpse Mister K. wearing a microphone headset. His voice is oddly flat, his fists are clenched. Lucas can only look up, into the black hole overhead. His inner ear is roaring with an echoplex of distant detuned voices, drowning in mutual overlap— Westway music room / dub reverb / his father roaring at the nurses / mother bawling out dumb classrooms in her sleep / dry voicings in damp cottage kitchen / the swirl of tidal chatter / digit digit / the quibbly nowhere men / let us pray /nuke the luke, boys… Images flicker through the air, but he can’t quite shoot them down with his eyes, they’re too fast. The black aperture overhead is trembling, enlarging slowly. His skull has become a flickering moviedrome. The room was a cardboard theatre of stiff crude figures, those people were all fat puppets, several worlds are on collision course. His yellowing voice makes an annunciation for the benefaction of hot virgins: “I’m a projectile vomited at random stars.” Foggy light fills that dark aperture. Is that a pair of human heads silhouetted against the rim of the circle? Luminous mist swirls into the chamber, he glimpses Pauline and Nick, siamese twins chained into their cannibal kissing act . . . Why won’t they wave, wave him up on beams of approval, but there they go gorging each other, he’s trembling, bumping around down here, trying to rise above himself, he can’t help it. But another face is up there on the rim, beckoning through snowflakes, ashflakes, extending a slender arm, loosening her veils, releasing her golden torrents of hair for him to ascend. He’s tied to this launch pad, which is burning him with its icy latticework, to watch Katie’s eyes glowing as her hand lingers around her breasts, between her thighs . . . The essential Lucas, released from the drab fluff of his clothes, will become an illumined being, a flood of liquid light, fluxing to the nearest transfiguration of the flesh, to that female object, but the smoke, the smog thickens, fattens its odour as he begins to rise into it on this massive unsteady jet of power. The smoke clears . . . A nazi valkyrie has overcome his girl, has become his mutant wolf-girl, half-hiding her fat cock with a dented helmet, he’ll have to levitate right through herm, through sweetish larvae and the swollen muddy polymorphs and their flicker of limbs . . .
She whipped her soul so much that finally she got used to the whipping and asked for it. She always believed in her ability to raise herself yet there where so many worms under the rind of kisses and the decision not to change.
After the Fire When morning came a great silence was left among the smoky ruins. The firefighters who battled the fire during the night were tired and asleep in their sweet submission and some with a smile of a vague and futile battle. Only he alone, was not asleep. He even avoided sleep without knowing whether he was the victor or the defeated, guessing only vaguely that perhaps, indeed perhaps, the only victory was his decision to understand which.
Manolis Aligizakis 