Small Change

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excerpt

As he comes up off the beach road and turns into Andrews
Street,
he is surprised by voices. To his right, the spacious
yard of the Simone
place is crowded with people. Strings of lights from the trees to the
outdoor kitchen swing in the light breeze. He feels a twinge of discomfort.
If they should see him they will insist that he come in, and the moment
he has timed his return for will be lost… But no, they are surrounded by
lights, food, music; they are having a good time; they will not notice his
brief shape in the night.
As soon as he enters the house he knows it is empty.
There is a note on the kitchen table.
Dearest Rico,
We are all at the Simone’s across the street. Please come.
Your loving mother,
Andrea
He returns to the darkened living room and sits in the big, soft
chair. Should he go over and ask Marianna to come back with him? They
will want to know why. They will smile and wonder and tease and he will
have to admit… he will have to say… and they will make fun of him, they
will think he is a crazy kid.
He remembers that his aunt always practises
her piano just after
dark and as he consoles himself
with that thought he hears footsteps on
the gravel walk outside.
The door opens and Marianna stands for a moment looking
puzzled. “Rico!” she says, “What are you doing sitting here in the dark.
Didn’t you see the note? Oh, I’m so sorry. You must have thought we all
abandoned you.”
He gets down out of the chair. She comes to where he is standing
and gives him a hug. Without meaning to, he stiffens.
She backs away and
looks down at him, her head tilted to one side.
“What’s wrong, caro? Are you all right?”
He doesn’t know what to say at first, then he goes to the piano
bench and opens it. He takes out the papers he has worked on and holds
them up to her. Suddenly he feels very small, and scared and shy.
She reaches down and smoothes his hair.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763157

In the Quiet After Slaughter

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excerpt

She was waiting for a table in a Nassau restaurant, a frumpy, frazzled
woman with a peeling snout, saying to him, Haven’t I seen you
on the Sunrise?
They’d returned from the shore excursion together, he lugging
her shopping bags while she propelled her wheel-chaired mother
along the island’s potted beach road. Later that night she turned
up at the piano bar, drained a Mint Julep, then exited. Buddy
sought her out the following day. She invited him along to a lecture
on seabirds.
– Remember what the boss say, Sam cautioned.
The cruise line had always been ambiguous about the help fraternizing
with guests. Inappropriate friendships, as such romances were
called, could be cause for dismissal. But if shipboard dalliances
resulted in the booking of additional holidays— if a passenger went
home with a smile on her face—who’d complain?
This woman wore unfashionable clothes, sensible shoes and little
makeup. While others took elaborate measures to conceal
their weight, she flaunted hers. Had he passed her on the street
Buddy wouldn’t have afforded her a second look. Yet in her presence,
that sunburned nose, the nectar breath, she wielded the
power of a sorceress. For the first time in his life the piano player
was beguiled.
– This one, he confided in Sam, is different.
One morning over coffee he was doodling on a coaster. As though
in a trance, he wrote, Her eyes look inside my head and see everything.
He underlined the last word.
At the card table behind the engine room they had a diagnosis for
Buddy’s affliction: Man Overboard. It’s what they called it when a
player fell for a passenger. So named since a despondent Filipino
waiter, having been rebuked by a flirtatious diner, jumped from …

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562874

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0980897971


Wellspring of Love

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excerpt

The early morning sun shone into Tyne’s eyes as she steered her
Chevrolet at unlawful speed through the town of Emblem, and headed
east up the hospital hill. The cloudless sky foretold a spectacular June
day, but Tyne paid no heed. Impatiently, she yanked the visor down
to shield her eyes, and through her rearview mirror, caught sight of a
police cruiser bearing down on her, its lights flashing.
“Oh no,” she moaned aloud, “I’ve no time for this.”
She pulled to the curb and stopped, and the police car pulled up
behind her. With both hands grasping the steering wheel, she lay her
head on it in resignation. In moments, there was a tap on her window.
She looked up and cranked it open to face the young police officer.
“Could I see your license and registration, please, ma’am?”
Tyne produced both with shaking hands and waited while he
examined them. Without looking up he said, “Do you know why I
stopped you?”
She sighed. “Yes, I was speeding.”
“Fifteen miles over the speed limit, ma’am. Not good.”
“I know that, Officer, but I’m on my way to the hospital. My aunt
has just been admitted and I don’t know what’s wrong, and I’m very
worried, and ….” Tyne stopped when she realized she sounded silly,
as if begging for mercy, when all she really wanted was for him to give
her the inevitable ticket and let her go.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Mrs. Cresswell,” he said as he handed the
documents back to her. “I’ll let you be on your way, but please be more
attentive to your driving. It isn’t going to do your aunt any good if you
end up in the bed next to her.”
Tyne saw a fleeting look of compassion on his face, and she smiled
in gratitude. “Thank you,” she murmured as he backed away from …

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562917

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763327

Straits and Turns

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excerpt

So, Mike went to the little shack, his kingdom for the next hour,
his isolation for the next hour, and after he fired up the burner and
shovelled some good shovelfuls of sand into the cylinder to let it dry,
a process that would take about ten minutes or so. While waiting for
the ten-minute process, Mike sat on his stool and tried to compose
his thoughts about what he could write for the next ten minutes, a
paragraph perhaps of his novel, which he had been trying to write
since his arrival in this huge country called Canada. Endless subject,
his book, which referred to his experiences in the new lands, what
he has lived up to now and other things that he imagined, images he
usually wrote on a piece of paper out of the roll they used to wipe their
hands, yet that didn’t stop him, since he usually re-writes everything
daily, using an old typewriter a friend of his gave him for free. An old
manual machine, yet good enough for the use he had for it, after all, a
free typewriter was always a good thing since it didn’t cost Mike any
money, which was very small and counted twice before being spent.
He started writing, in Hellenic, of course, still the only language
he could master in this country.
“Both of us were born close to different seas, mine was the blue Mediterranean
and yours the grey Pacific Ocean, yet we bleed the same red blood; we
feel the same inexplicable brotherhood, and we also feel the same grief in front
of sickness and disease. We haven’t walked the same paths, and we have never
worn the same shoes, yet we both follow the same ascent to the mountain top.
I, searching for the land with the asphodels where the blessed ones exist while
you search for your tear and its meaning before the orphan and the destitute,
Yes, we create the same footprints through the dark passages searching for the
song of the wind and for the shaking off the eagle’s wings before he commences
his soaring up in the sky, Yes, the same heartbeat guides us both when we hug
the old man and we love the same torch that lights the dark pathway before the
wind extinguishes it and we both feel the same nostalgia for beloved persons…

https://draft2digital.com/book/4250839#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763866
who float in the absence of sorrow…”

Entropy

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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

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DPCRLJC6

Ugga

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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)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/192676370X

Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume I

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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

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562834

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763076

Wheat Ears

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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

https://draft2digital.com/book/3748127#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BKHW4B4S

Jazz with Ella

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excerpt

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.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562892

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763246

HEAR ME OUT

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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.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562946

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763807