Wealth
During the summer nights, when the day turns cool
you hear the air crystals chime while you
sleep
as if your flock of sheep passes, without bleating,
and grazes in the sky, yes, your flock, you who never had
a single lamb, so certain and calm and absolute
that, when you wake up in the morning, the simplest
work you do and the most unimportant discussion
you’re forced to endure take such seriousness and
meaning of your unknown, yet, realized wealth.
Routine
Often you said we needed
to change our habits
a new beginning to commence
a new purpose to seek
help to discover hope
and its elements
while all along
you remained resting
in lush recliner
and always you upheld
your beliefs while
tightly in hand
you held
the recliner’s lever
Long-listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards
Autumnal Exercise
Autumn is harsh to innocence and our adventure will
finally remain unexplained;
but when the moon rises we’re all guilty and a child
in the suburb collects the leaves as if they’re proof
of a killing or the fool smiles while he’s done with harvesting
and at night the dreamer is king; for this he has nothing
to do but to write on a window pane all day long, reading
passages of another era, since he knows that he might be
forgotten like a mother’s breast that now nurses the narrow
path
and, oh, strange windstorm, when they all have the same
thought of sheltering themselves and the crippled jumps
hastily between his crutches like a bird.
excerpt
…protocols and ways that all members adhered to, which was to slow
down and do things the way others have done them before since here
no one did things to impress the boss. Therefore, after Mike had finished
his cigarette, he decided to go to the can, although he didn’t feel
an urgent need, to give Luigi enough time to do his part of the job.
He sat on the toilet and suddenly the same image of his hero
came to his mind when he frantically searched his pocket, into which
lucky enough, he discovered the pencil he used to write down the
number of gallons that filled the occasional engine tank, to make sure
that later in the day, he didn’t enter the wrong number on the official
logs of the company. With the pencil surely in hand, he took a piece of
toilet paper and, folding it in two just so the pencil wouldn’t poke holes
in it, Mike started unfolding the image he had in his mind. He had
plenty of time, according to Luigi, who preferred things done slowly;
suddenly, the image changed, as if in a revelation, and became a new
one which he described as softly as he could so he wouldn’t pierce the
soft paper. Mike knew he had to rewrite it sometime later, yet he slowly
unfolded it on toilet paper, and when done, he folded it in two and
placed it in his pocket.
He went out only to realize that Luigi had finished his work
and was standing at the side of a bench, talking to another Italian,
Giovanni, an engineer, who was on the afternoon shift like them. One
could understand, that here in this big corporation for which Mike
worked, there were men of different backgrounds, Italians, Hellenes,
Chinese, and other nationalities, however, the Italians were just like
the Hellenes, Mike remembered that back in Athens we used to say,
una fatcha una ratsa, meaning that Hellenes and Italians were so much
alike, just like one race and they never talked about the war of 1940
when the Italians attacked Greece.
Luigi then informed Mike that it was time to go for their coffee,
so all three headed towards the small coffee room out in the yard. It was
a pleasant afternoon to the point of making Mike feel nostalgic. The
sun was passing the west horizon slowly, just like Luigi liked things
to be done, towards Stanley Park to the west of the city…
“When’s the next return connection, please? And where do I catch it?”
“What connection you talking about? You got ID?” The guard is surly, he
picks at a scab at the corner of his mouth, and then presses a red button above
his intercom.
This is all happening too quickly. Lucas can only speed into a convoluted
improvisation about a lost student railcard,. As the fabulation becomes
increasingly riddled with internal contradictions, Lucas can hear his voice rising
to a fractious squawk.
Now he’s a public spectacle. The guard has been joined by two colleagues,
and there’s also a random gathering of people from the concourse, a man carrying
a huge china dog, an elderly Asian in flared trousers, someone with a
combination-lock briefcase chained to his wrist.
They’re all staring. Their throats start moving in unison, out of his control,
they’re inhaling nasally, to produce a thick hawking laughter. Through their
din, Lucas can hear fragments of a security conference:
“. . . sure this is the geezer ID Division is after?”
“They want him to have special ID treatment, for crissakes . . .”
“They’re not really Operational yet. He might be some random nut who’s
wandered in from the rain.”
“If he is just a random, Transit will want some action, you bet.”
Lucas now knows what has to be done. Crude physical action can refute any
illusion, even a bad dreamscape. Material conditions determine consciousness.
That’s what Mummy said. So just hit out.
He punches the iron pillar nearest him, bruising his hands on the protruding
bolts. Nothing collapses. So this Terminal of Babylon is going to be a stubborn
bugger?
On a rush of adrenalin he pushes aside the guards and staggers into their
booth, tugging at the intercom, to tear out its reality by the roots. It comes away in
a clutch of wires. His ankle collapses and he falls back through the cubicle doorway,
but the momentum won’t stop, his fists swing into their grinning faces.
“I can’t wake . . .” he shouts between gasps. “I can’t wake up!” Now they are
rolling and tumbling in the rubble; he can smell one victim’s aftershave, and
blood trickles all over his hand, he’s broken a porcine nose, or a porcelain dog,
and lightbulbs are swinging—
More figures in peaked caps block the light—their gloves grip Lucas
around the neck and legs, bending him into balletic contortions, counter-
stretching every tendon in his body.
The poem virus
A poem has been swirling around me since yesterday.
It gives me a headache and vertigo.
I turn my head to the side.
At the edge of my vision
I discern it
thick stain
at the edge of my desk.
This is not personal—I say to it
I don’t want any more poems
nor steamships loaded with rice,
I am fed up with the oceanic voyages
on ships of high underwriter’s costs
a raft is all I want
in a plastic self-contained pool
in a yard full of rusted metal,
one restful body, a chair made of cloth
to rest
This I said to it.
And it took its revenge on me.
And it got filled by you and with you.
And it wrote itself.
excerpt
The grin left his mouth and he began to look wary. I was the one who got straight A’s, the only one in this pack of D’s and C minuses.
“Ten bucks, Paulie. You can read, can’t you? Go look it up. A British blue cheese. And if you lose, you also gotta buy a pound of the shit, and eat it with a pair of chopsticks.”
That did him in. He waved me off.
“So what. You know cheese. But you don‘t know shit about tools. Thought yer ol’ man was a engineer.”
“Yeah, well, what you think you’re talkin about here is a Stilson, a Stilson Wrench. Adjustable, with teeth and a long handle. A plumber’s tool, fool. What you want one of those things for?”
He tried to look like a poker player holding a pocket pair.
“Get me one and I’ll show ya.”
I thought about that for a second. I knew where I could get one, but the sure bet had bit the dust and here was another chance to do business.
“Cost ya a buck an hour.”
“Don’t need an hour.”
“Buck an hour or any fraction there-fuckin-of. Final offer.”
Paulie laughed.
“Some altuh boy, wid a mout like dat …” but he dug into his pocket and came up with a coin that looked like it had been dipped in chocolate and dusted with tobacco bits. “Heah’s fifty cent. The rest when you delivuh.”
Paulie had achieved heroic status when he organized the now famous watermelon raid earlier in the summer. A boxcar had been left for several hours on the spur track behind number five park and Paulie had picked the padlock, releasing hundreds of tubby fruits into the city. Kids from as far away as Railroad Avenue were toting melons on their shoulders, or sitting in small groups, slicing them up with kitchen knives, their faces and hands drenched with sticky juice. It was a hard act to follow, but whatever plan he’d hatched for the Stilson, it was designed to maintain his legendary, outlaw image. And as supplier of the necessary technology, I would earn a small slice of his notoriety pie. But I needed help with this enterprise, and I knew who I could count on. Anthony Morga was the smallest but scrappiest member of our tribe at Holy Rosary School, and I could get him on board for a tithe of the buck I’d make from the rental. He was a wary kid, always kind of skittish about promissory contracts, and as we made our way down the unpaved alley that ran like a neglected country
V
A lonely oak stands gracefully
against the ravaging north wind
smiling at the shivering cloud
sun ray reflects in the river’s retina
while the sleepwalking troglodyte
colours the guillotines in bloody red;
stigmata emanating from
the insatiable abyss he dwells.
Yet here stands tall, like the oak.
The Overseer. With the horizon in his eyes
and with the wider view always guarding
and directing his day’s length.
The stigma’s breadth sighs like
the most silent river murmurs as
people parade in front of him like
contemporary zombies
covered in elaborate garments or
irrelevant undergarments
yet although well-fashioned
and trendily attired
they stand naked from the inside out.
excerpt
Tanya also decided that the palomino could use a quick bath, and
together, they led their horses to the wash rack.
Even though they were stabled at the far end of the show
grounds, it was amazing how many people were finding their way
back there to say hi, offer their words of encouragement, and take
a look at the horses. Joel never was a social animal, but even he
found himself saying “howdy” to the folks who wandered by. He
recognized a few faces from the Great Falls Show and he suspected
that they were part of the Montana contingent who had
been cheering on both him and Tanya.
After bathing their horses, the consensus was to get a bite to
eat. They had a light salad and a bowl of soup at a restaurant,
then it was time to return to the horses and start thinking about
saddling up for the evenings performance. It was already seven as
they passed the arena on their way back to the stables and could
hear the national anthem and the roar of the crowd heralding the
start of this evenings’ performance. This ought to be something,
Joel thought to himself as he nervously strolled along between
Tanya and Cindy.
As they saddled up, Joel thought the horses could tell that this
was something special. This time, the warm-up pen was much
less crowded. With only twenty horses and riders making it in to
the finals, there was lots of room to move around, but Joel didn’t
want to allow his nerves to get the better of him and start to work
his horse too hard. What was different this time was that there
were probably more people around the warm-up ring, watching
the horses and riders prepare, than there were at many horse
shows.
This evening they would be riding in the reverse order that
they finished in the preliminaries the previous day. For Joel,
being in fifteenth position meant that he would be the fifth rider
in the ring, and for Tanya, in second, she would be the nineteenth
rider. With all of the horses separated by only a few points
going into the final go-round, it really was anyone’s show. After
all, they were competing in front of a crowd of thousands…
excerpt
They travelled in silence, tired. Demetre couldn’t find a way to
take him away from his thoughts, although he surely wanted to talk
to him about Magda. But the young man was in a melancholic mood,
just like the overcast sky over them and the monotonous light rain
of Crete. The monotony that overburdened a heavy heart or a wandering
mind that only knew how to find disturbance and make it its
own, that only found imbalance and made it its own, as was Hermes’s
mind and heart this fine cloudy evening.
And it was that certain heaviness on his chest as his mind travelled
to the years he’d be faraway from this land he was born into and
raised, this land with its poor people for who Hermes had strong feelings
of understanding and empathy, these people for he felt he had
to work his best to alleviate their daily burden by making sure one
day they might carry a lighter burden and they might be able to have
a decent living comparing them to the citizens of other European
countries, since he had spent many hours studying and educating
himself with regards to the standards of living in some European
countries and he knew things could change to the better if the proper
legislature was passed and if new and modern rules were put in place,
he had many thoughts of the how and the when, yet he also knew it
was very difficult to change things people had been doing for eons,
but he also knew he had to try nonetheless because he truly believed
that when the going gets tough, the tough get going, as a familiar saying
went.
When they arrived at his parents’ house, he had in mind to
show them the graduation papers which he had brought along and
which were resting inside his small briefcase. He wanted them to feel
pride for his diploma, something many people would love to have,
yet he had this unbearable weight on his heart and he could see it
with the eyes of his soul, a soul big enough to take in the whole world,
the world with its poverty and disease, with its wars and disasters…
Manolis Aligizakis 