Theatre of Sidon (400 A.D.)
Son of an honourable citizen, above all, handsome
ephebe of the theatre, pleasing in many ways,
I often compose very daring verses in Greek,
that I circulate, secretly most of the time.
Oh gods! That they won’t be seen
by the darkly clothed people, those who speak of morality
these verses are about a superior quality of carnal pleasure
leading to sterile love, often rejected.
Dry Mouth
Fasting is not necessary, he said. I chewed my saliva,
ripped the bed sheet, knocked at the door, smelled
the wall, waited in the hallway, out of the stoa, and I stood
in the road. The night was falling late, later than the void
between two hands. The bus arrived, and all five of them
disembarked together. The woman’s kerchief fell.
The lights were still on; the ticket collector had long hair,
tickets, two drachma coins, and his secrets. The spotlight
hit the man with the black suit, who was coming from
the other side, the man I didn’t expect, yet he had my hat on
and held a basket with yellow apples.
Lantern
The lantern’s wisdom I embrace
and the narrow path in front
I unfold with all good inspiration
for the discovery of the one.
Sardonic laughter
ironic smiles short
ever short images of
stolen gazes
when a young sun struggles
to transform the world
into golden miracles.
Human banality
that overcomes
all the dreams of dreamers.
A lantern’s wisdom I present
to my feet
for my feet to follow perhaps
this morning perhaps today
I’ll find Him.
Perhaps this morning
I’ll find the one
who sees man like a man.
Perhaps today
I’ll get to meet the One
who doesn’t stay at the color
of garment or skin
who doesn’t esteem
the value of a bank account
or the number of missiles
pointed against the other man.
Tired footsteps in the agora and
and in the arena
and in the matador’s dreams
as I endure the ridicule of
the inexistent life forms
as I endure the pain of searching
for a piece of the endless blue sky.
Tired footsteps up the steep
face of daylight and the blind
hands of the moonlight.
Return
Smile of the Gods, Bay of Saronikos, always great
blessing of our ship’s route
we could hear the roar of the high seas as easily as
the calmness of your depth
under the morning dew like a dove with its body’s
nonchalance: Athens
shivers and revels like a nymph that longs
for the faraway sun.
Because the sky shines, blonde mane of Pegasus,
Fate of the Parthenon
glass that Zeus keeps upside-down that the dream-light
is poured a flood
prodigal son, I return to you swaying like a flower
in the breeze
earth, sky and you, oh sea of Attica, to whom I owe all
my Songs!
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.
excerpt
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…
Long-listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards
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.
excerpt
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.”
excerpt
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…
Manolis Aligizakis 