Month: June 2025

He Rode Tall

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Excerpt

It must have been three o’clock at night. Joel awoke to the
rumble of a vehicle pulling into the ranch yard. Peering out
the kitchen window, Joel confirmed what he already knew from
hearing the distinct sounds of the engine. It was Harry pulling
in with the old half-ton. Harry parked behind the ramshackle
caboose that served as his home, shut off the truck, and disappeared
inside.
Joel couldn’t sleep. When the clock on the wall finally showed
five he rose from the chair that had become his bed and started his
routine. It was six by the time he was down to the barn and he was
surprised to see that Harry was already at work. After exchanging
cordial “mornings,” the two men went about their routine of
brushing and then saddling the three-year-olds. The engineer in
him told Joel that it would be far more efficient if they saddled
more than two horses at a time, but with only two saddles between
them this was the best they could do. And besides, Joel was starting
to enjoy the break between working horses that allowed him to
think about what he had accomplished with the last horse, what
he would do differently the next time out, and what he would do
with the horse he was about to ride. As he became handier at saddling
and unsaddling, Joel was finding that he had less time for
this kind of thinking. As he learned more and more from watching
the old cowboy he didn’t need nearly as much time to think about
his game plans for the schooling that day. Without a doubt,

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0980897955

Unfulfilled

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More
And of love, in silence
There was more
Than in words, the thousands
Said before
L’ectric Cat
Catch yourself
You dream in
Three (min)
What was that
You L’ectric cat

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763688

Water in the Wilderness

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Excerpt

them the benefit of the doubt. They’re Ruby’s niece and nephew and her children’s cousins, so maybe she does love them, and wants to give them a home.”
For a few minutes they lay silently in the stillness of the house. A faint breeze riffled the curtains at the window, and Tyne felt its cool fingers on her shoulder. The tensions and sadness of the day had been made more oppressive by the heat, and she welcomed the respite of the night.
“We hardly knew the children until two weeks ago,” Morley mused, “which makes me realize we should be more involved with people in the community.”
“But you have been involved, Morley,” Tyne protested. “Look how much you did to get a new hospital in Emblem. And you’re on the Board of Directors.”
“But that doesn’t mean I know what’s going on in families and what their needs are.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t know the answer, Tyne. I just know that, as good Christians and good citizens, we should be more open to the needs of people around us.”
Tyne snuggled her head against his chest. “You’re a good man, Morley Cresswell.” She smiled into the darkness. “You know what? I’ve come to love those kids. Is it possible to become so fond of them in such a short time, or is it a passing phase, like a person becomes infatuated with a member of the opposite sex?”
Morley chuckled. “Ah no, I know what you mean, hon. It’s nothing like infatuation. I’ve fallen in love with them, too.”
“You know,” Tyne said, “I have to confess I was scared to death of them coming here. I didn’t know how to handle kids, and I wasn’t sure I would even like them very much.”
“You’ve done a good job with them, Tyne.”
“Thanks for saying that, honey. But when Rachael yelled at me the other day, saying I’m not her mommy, it really hurt. I wondered where I’d gone wrong.”
Morley’s arm tightened around her. “She’s hurting, and she’s angry. It wasn’t anything you did or didn’t do.”
“I know,” Tyne whispered. “I’m too sensitive.”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/192676319X

Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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Excerpt

Ken circled around the stone people, which he later learned were called
Inuksuit. Around and around he walked, occasionally reaching out a hand
to touch them in a dazed kind of wonderment and awe. For the first time
in many weeks, his spirit began to lift.
I thought I was quite a well-informed person on a variety of subjects,
given that in my upbringing, acquiring general knowledge was considered
important. General knowledge led you to being a generalist and it’s the generalists
that run the world so you want to have vast amounts of knowledge
in a variety of areas. So, you learn about the pyramids and the sphinx and
Stonehenge and Easter Island and all of that. But here were these strange
human-like figures made of stone that I had never heard of – and at that
point, I started to come out of my stupor. These figures got a hold of me. This
was something that captured my attention in a major way.
He set up his tent some distance from them, thinking perhaps they
were sacred symbols and while he struggled with his tent, he kept glancing
at the stone men, reluctant to look away even for a moment lest he
lose the magic. With his little tent tamed, and his camp set up on the
windy plain, he dug out one of his rolls of paper – from the depths of
his backpack – and began drawing. He rolled the paper farther after each
drawing and began another. He couldn’t stop; he was infused with the
same energy he had felt when he first began drawing, in Portugal, as a
young boy.
When his stomach let him know he was hungry, he walked down to
the river and caught a fish. Cooking was a challenge because there was so
little wood of any kind to burn. He had learned to start a fire with dried
moss and then add bits of shrubbery to get an intense blaze that lasted
mere minutes. He usually managed to cook one side of the fish over the
flame. Then he had to start a fresh fire to cook the other side. In time, he
learned to eat and enjoy raw fish because it was so much simpler.
While camped near the Inuksuit for several days, making drawing after
drawing, he noticed a group of people setting up camp some distance
from him near the river. The people on the west side of the river didn’t
acknowledge these people on the east side, and they in turn did not speak
to the people on the west bank. Ken concluded that these were Eskimos,
the people he had been searching for.
The Eskimos paid no attention to Ken and he did not try to make
contact. Instead, he continued to draw, fish and cook his meals. He was
consciously becoming a silent person and the deeper he fell into the stillness,
the greater the solace he found.
One day a woman with a deeply lined and weathered face carried some
fish and bannock on a flat stone to Ken’s tent, placed it on the ground and
walked back to her camp. Ken ate gratefully. “How shall I respond?” he
wondered.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073573

Nikos Engonopoulos – Poems

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and when I arrive
at the last
step
of this dark
ladder
and I open
the door
of the room
I, then,
sense
that the room
was
is
big
garden
filled with music
and paintings
a room
full of bed sheets
thrown
in the garden
bed sheets
some fluttering
like flags
and like
windowpanes
and others were
thrown down
like mirrors
and others

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763734

Λεωνίδας Καζάσης, Προμήτορος νουθεσίαι

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Λεωνίδας Καζάσης, Προμήτορος νουθεσίαι

Jazz with Ella

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Excerpt

Jennifer had the feeling she’d been checkmated. He had not been concerned at all about her disappearance—he only wanted to ensure she did more than her part.
“Which students?”
“David needs to develop better written skills. This is a credit course for him, and right now I can’t give him a passing grade. And then there’s Lona. Don’t know what to make of her. She wants a grade for the course, too.” His voice descended to a hush. “I really don’t consider her a serious student.” He hesitated and Jennifer remembered that she was supposed to be finding out Lona’s agenda and reporting back to Chopyk. It didn’t seem very important to her.
They had reached her room, but under no circumstances was Jennifer inviting Chopyk in. “I’ll deal with the students, Professor,” she said abruptly. “Goodnight now.”
He harrumphed by way of comment, bowed, and left her. By the time her head hit the pillow she had already forgotten how irritating he was.
She dreamed a familiar dream. She was hovering over a lake or a pond—sometimes she was in the lake—but this time she floated above it. Her fingernails had unaccountably grown extra long like those of a Chinese mandarin, and she clawed the water searching for the face that she knew would be there. The eyes that stared up at her from among the water weeds were usually familiar eyes—her little brother—and she must save him. She alone could save him. But her outsize talons snarled in the weeds and she could not scoop up the boy. Water trickled through her fingers. And when she gazed into his eyes—now she was closer, inches above the water—she saw not her brother at all, only the blue grey eyes of the attractive stranger, sinking fast.

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

Swamped

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Excerpt

Asians, every kind of European and Latin American, Africans, and
of course the original First Nations people, the victims as Eteo considered
them. The First Nations people whom the ruthless Europeans
of two centuries ago, with their rifles and guns and chicken pox and
diphtheria and polio and alcohol, almost exterminated, slowly and
methodically. The Europeans who came with their tall ships ready to
carry out whatever barbarisms suited their purposes, all while proselytizing,
yes, the Europeans who wanted to turn the First Nations
people into good Christians such as themselves only to exterminate
them tribe after tribe, only to ostracize them clan after clan, only to
enclose them at the peripheries, closely guarded by the always repressive
word or sword, whichever worked best.
Eteo kept walking, now with a fire in his chest. His steps led him
to the familiar dock at the end of 22nd Street. He reached the edge
of the dock and leaned against the framed barrier, letting his gaze
travel over the shiny water. It at least reflected a natural balance, unlike
the human world, its natural balance permeating everything, part
of the balance cosmos has invented and into which even the unbalance
of people blends and gets absorbed. His eyes encompassed the
gleam of the water and the green background on the far side of English
Bay in the university neighbourhood, where more rich Vancouverites
lived, where houses sold in the millions and one wondered
why. Who had induced such lunacy in the housing market while
thousands in East Vancouver were homeless or paying half their meagre
incomes on rent? Whose game was being played in the Lower
Mainland housing market to favor one area against the other?
Eteo let his attention dive into the shallow water under the dock
where small crabs went about their business on the sea floor and the
small perch fed on the barnacles of the dock’s piles. A few starfish
decorated the sandy floor while seaweed floated left and right like
orchestra that a conductor directed its myriad violins in this naturally
balanced world beyond human influence, a balance suddenly interrupted
by his mobile phone. Yannis was ringing him.
“Hello, John.”
“Hi, how are you?” Yannis asked

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08WP3LMPX

Wheat Ears – Selected Poems

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Metaphors II

Sweet whisper of the grapevine

serene Monday twilight

treacle and cream cheese

impeccable homely blessings

granite and slate limbs of the glyph

in the endlessness of blue sky

yellow wheat fields

dry fallen pine needles, wish

for expected moist

innumerable city lights

the beggar’s empty cup

wind hitting the window shutters

bread hardened on the shelf

glaucous insubordinate sea, abundant

conches and seashells

reddish autumn leaves falling

teardrops of separation

wanderer of plains and hilltops

the darkened fate of innocence

I have been

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

Μαρία Πανούτσου, Το μπορντέλο

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Μαρία Πανούτσου, Το μπορντέλο