Before we existed the Earth lived, before it spread its plains it was alive with its knowledge and wisdom; in the primeval days water and fire fought many wars over the soft body of this earth, and the two enemy elements made peace and lived together and the world shone its joy and purpose; you, oh harmony, and the seed of the great father stirred in the womb of the endless sea which gave birth to us too and when the verdure of the forests glowed with life the world assumed a joyous, unimaginable beauty. And when man walked upon the Earth his mind shone like a new sun that fogged the heavens.
Protect yourselves from the panic that spreads soon after blood stains the asphalt protect yourselves from the club of the cop the accusation of the informer from the indifferent crowd who will fill the streets again protect yourselves from the spring, the following summer the travel arrangements and personal reveries from the two future husbands who argue where the dead people were laid protect yourselves from the poets who steal verses from graves of the unknown.
‘Susan, that’s unkind.’ Clifford considered Susan rather trying at times. ‘It’s also unkind of you two to get on to shop-talk when we’re out enjoying ourselves,’ Susan countered. ‘Ask her to join us. Let’s give her a good time.’ ‘Maybe I will in a moment.’ Clifford took a thoughtful sip of his brandy. ‘I suppose Liam’s looking after the children,’ said Fiona. ‘Or Nora’s mother is,’ Clifford suggested. ‘You mean that pretty girl has children already?’ John could not conceal his surprise. ‘Two of them,’ Fiona answered. ‘A boy and a girl.’ ‘She didn’t waste any time,’ Ian remarked. ‘They’re young, of course,’ said Fiona. ‘Four years and two and a half, I believe.’ ‘Don’t look now, Ian Anderson,’ said John, ‘but Clifford has just gone to get you a woman: a dark beauty of black, remorseless tragedy.’ ‘You’re drunk, John Simpson,’ Susan said. ‘How many sneakies did you have at the bar?’ ‘Listen to her, Ian,’ John said. ‘Not a month married and she’s nagging the hell out of me already. Are you sure you really want a wife?’ ‘Very sure,’ Ian replied firmly. ‘I don’t imagine that you would be nagging Julian, Catriona,’ John said, ‘when you are only a month into your marriage.’ ‘I’d wait for two months,’ said Catriona. Like Ian’s, her voice too was richly seasoned with Fiona’s lost ‘oats and haggis.’ ‘You’d better watch that one, Julian,’ John warned light-heartedly. ‘What Clifford didn’t tell you,’ Fiona began, leaning forward to speak in confidence, ‘is that he delivered that young lady—at her birth, I mean—when he was barely two months into his internship. It was a very difficult placenta previa delivery that required a C-section under the most primitive conditions. He almost lost the mother and the baby too.’ ‘Good old Clifford,’ said John. ‘A born surgeon and one of the best we have in the country.’ ‘But the sad result of Clifford’s first major surgery,’ Fiona said, ‘is that the mother was left unable to bear children. Clifford blames himself for that. Unfairly, I think. Given his age and inexperience at the time, he did well to save the lives of both the mother and her baby. But he rarely talks about it. He has received both high commendation and strong condemnation from the local doctors in the area.’
I walked to the far ends of the world and talked to the northern and southern races about elegance and freedom that enhanced the ultimate perfectness for self-discovery and acceptance and they all laughed at my face such a selfish man I was that they called me names foolish and a laughingstock of my days and when I stood guard at the western borders I was taken as a lunatic like all other defenders of our ancient traditions which appeared through cracks of my mind past, forgotten days and discarded months to unforgettable years when I talked to the dead soldiers and became merciless when I stood at the far ends of the world as time was allotted only once and only once I had the chance to turn injustice into justice.
“Drive…” Costa started the engine. “Where to?” he asked. “Drive,” the man repeated. The same word echoed in the small space of the car when the customer burped an out-of-this-world stench of half-digested food, alcohol, and body odour, which brought a sudden and before-its-time asphyxia. Costa started driving around the block trying to locate a police car, which was never around when needed. Then he turned towards Howe Street, as if a revelation, Costa’s mind ran to where the solution to his problem was. Surely, he turned at the first corner and started heading south on Granville Bridge while the reflections of headlights on the wet asphalt blinded him; however, that was the least of his concerns, and although half asleep and inebriated, he raised his head occasionally and peeked out of the window. Again, he burped, adding to the driver’s breathing issues. Costa lit a cigarette; the smoke was better smelling than his foul mouth, and wishing to reaffirm where they were going, he asked again:
Jeff straightened up and took a deep breath. “Maybe you’d better go in now,” he said hoarsely. “She was asking for you earlier. She’s in room one.” Tyne patted his hand and got to her feet. “I’ll let you know what Dr. Dunston says, Dad.” A brief nod was the only sign that he heard her. She turned away and headed for the corridor leading to the two private rooms in the building. She was not surprised her aunt had been put into a private ward; after all, no one deserved it more. Millie Harper had been a tireless advocate and worker for the hospital since before it had been on the drawing board. Tyne remembered her own brief stint on her aunt’s committee during the building year. She had come home from Calgary to nurse her dad back to health following his stroke, and Millie had recruited her for the Building & Furnishing committee. Since then Millie had been a fixture on the board of the Emblem hospital, at times serving under Morley’s chairmanship. Tyne stopped before the door which bore the room number and a plaque with the name of the donor who had furnished it. She could hear low voices which stopped when she tapped lightly. The door opened to reveal her mother, an anxious look on her pale face. “Oh, Tyne, come in. Dr. Dunston is here.” She stood aside to let Tyne enter. Grant Dunston raised his head. “Hello, Tyne.” Then he turned his attention back to Millie Harper who lay quietly in the bed, her eyes closed. Tyne was conscious of two disturbing thoughts, the first that Dr. Dunston had seldom greeted her in any other way than with his usual cheery, “Hi, sis.” Her second thought was that the woman in the bed, frail and ashen-faced, was hardly recognizable as her beloved aunt. Her heart in her throat, Tyne made her way to the bedside and gently took hold of the cool hand that lay motionless on top of the covers. Millie opened her eyes and a flicker of a smile made her lips twitch.
II An embarrassed cloud hovers between the horizon’s arms which forsake the colourful rainbows and the frost of a shiver when the young poet enters with his avalanche of bluish creativity attending to the dandelion’s flexing with arms widely stretched to the crystal stars and beyond the young poet now enters with words written on stone with words engraved on paper; wisdom in the process of learning the unconditioned young poet now enters mesmerized by the chamomile’s yellow tear dazzled by the chickadee’s melody giving all his sunlit presents as always compassion and emotions heightened in the arms of love for the infinitesimal for every preceding form, the poet now enters while metal birds filled with sulfur and brimstone like furies from a bygone era attack and destroy the highest ziggurats.
Ionia Ionia was lost forever in 1922 Ionia, a spring and a mother. Think of the silent deeds that stand by us when we become conscious of the great pain deeds of man and the mountains take form slowly in such a way grievance isn’t for Greece but for history. How often power hidden in the mystery of life turns its face away from the honest works of man before the decay that confronts and spreads like the frozen and parched gust of winter the longing of the Greek and the Turk’s arrogance fade away. Both alike the sun and the cloud that together sink and dissolve in the night in the great night. In Ionia one can meet us you and I and the black headscarf of the grandmother. One can see the made of oak boat of Odysseus the vendetta of stony Mani and Markos Mpotsaris’ Laka-Souli the voice that became Logos or the playful waves accentuated by star matter thickening the columns of the temple. In Ionia man tried to create the face of god and at last he created his own thoughtful face.
Lamb, frosty lamb short poem take me by the hand; dawn has its thorn and its stool. Let us believe until evening comes. Moon, take off your shoes I can’t sleep on my back if I’ll turn to my side I’ll hurt. The door is open I can’t leave.
Unanswered Love That lonely tree on the mountaintop is an unanswered love it grows old ravaged by the wind and loneliness it never knows the rustle of the forest during the night it still insists to become a wave, a by-chance monogram, tattoo of the dream, it dives deep into the end of the horizon it transforms into a myth and distances itself flapping its wings to the voice that calls it while before the body departs it writes echoes of vibrations in the air heavenly contours of reflections
Manolis Aligizakis 