Roots
Spreading east and south
roots attach to sphagnum
softening rock above the permafrost
arms stretched open by
endless benevolence arresting
love in an embrace of absent
sunlight, luminous Borealis
painting sky lobes and heart
leaves with velvet infinite
crescendos of celestial music
played by ephemeral instruments
dressed in limpidity as if
declaring purity is as
plain to the eye as in every
peaceful mind of man or beast
Prejudiced
With that prejudice the disobedient toward death,
the crafty, the hypocrite, the unconvinced,
he underlines insignificant or inexistent things:
the fluff of the dead bird on the thorns,
the window that opens to a dead-end wall,
the scratches of the wall, the sketch of a vessel
the handsome archer among the large lilies
that invisible depth which the archer aims at
while two dead men, with turned backs, slowly
and carefully raise in front of the window
the white, square, stretched bed sheet.
25
Two hundred and fifty thousand years before zero
all the Mitochondrion Eves
fight inside the same Paradise
in a valley
strewn with gigantic bones
until one overtakes:
the first Mother.
On the same day the first
democracy is established
the first church inside the cave
the club higher
in the hand of the first, powerful
symbol of authority
for the same purpose
they all vote for the one Cave Master
since the Homo Erectus
devised the appropriate submission
as a bequest to the Homo Antecessor.
Excerpt
Ken didn’t wonder why this man should make such an offer. It seemed
as natural as going to the beach to meet and talk with Francisco. And so
Ken would sit and turn out drawings as though he was working on an
assembly line while Rui’s pet monkey sat and watched.
Several weeks after this arrangement had begun, Rui talked to Ken’s
father. “The wisest thing you could do is not send him to school. Let him
develop what he has. He is a primitive. I have never met one before now.
He obviously has an immense talent and he has an immense desire. I have
never seen anything like this. The best thing you can do is just leave him
alone to do what he does. You can tutor him. Teach him to read and write
– and do arithmetic and the other basics – but let him develop, as he will.
It would be a crime to interfere with him.”
Two days after Rui had delivered his opinions about Ken’s schooling,
Ken and his father were having breakfast in the small room off the kitchen
where gauze curtains filtered the early morning sun. His father took a
sip of coffee and looked up from his newspaper. “I have an idea,” he said.
“As you know, we all have our jobs in life. I have mine and now you shall
have yours. You love to draw so much so why not make drawing your job?
If you like, I’ll make an arrangement with you. You draw all week and
help Francisco doing what he does.
Night Trip
The bus pulls ahead noisily
grinding the seconds into airy flour.
Oh, monster of a myth
what I fear and respect is you
as you gulp the white lines
of the angry asphalt —
the night giving flesh to the starry time.
This highway extends
along a line that vanishes into the void
the spheres and small planets play
the night giving flesh to the starry time.
I run with dizzy motionlessness into the future
clouds and stars amid my hair
the eons pass through me like a wind whirl
frozen current —
next to me, sleepy passengers travel.
No Way Out
Bottle tips to its side emptying
its contents
a drunken night spent while
you tried to put to sleep
first of the month
instincts and aches
before you piss away
this month’s paycheck
in three or four
uninterrupted nights of stupor
as if expecting Hades
who will finally come
to erase you
and your ordeal
from this golden world
Manolis Aligizakis 