Newspapers
Papers sell worthy events
the kiss prince charming gave
princess wild
fold your heroes in pages
wrinkled and part ripped
packaged kilo of red mullets
secretly they rise your heroes
moistened by fish gills and scales
they ascend declaring to the kitchen
and to olive oil smoking in the pan
their innocence of youth
erased dreams and ambitions
Colors
City smog diaphanous blue
gasps like a gazelle’s neck
tightly held in the lion’s jaws
and her mound’s thin hair
as soft as breeze
amid my fingers
touching, feeling smoothness
lustrous purple dusk
divided in two equal parts
immense in our internal mirror
on her hand a bit of yellow
and a rose, fiery red
for her bloodied path
to the faraway land where
the stern knee of the Kore
transforms
the beauty of earth into
an amphora of limpidity
excerpt
said Chopyk with only a hint of irony. He stroked his beard and stared at her with curiosity in his eyes. “I understand from Maria that you have a class scheduled for this morning.”
“Yes,” replied Jennifer tersely. Don’t explain, don’t apologize. Last night is none of his business. “I want to hear the students’ experiences in Leningrad. I have my own to share, too.”
“But I also know that you have been cancelling classes while in Leningrad….”
“As we discussed that first night,” she broke in quickly, starting across the lobby.
“Yes, agreed…but….” Chopyk followed, taking small, deliberate steps beside her. She matched his fussy gait. What is this nonsense all about? Surely he isn’t going to punish me?
“Since I have been carrying on with classes while in Leningrad for any who care to study,” he sniffed, “I think it only right that you should lead both groups, juniors and seniors, while on the Volga cruise.”
So that was it. Once again, he had hit her at her most guilty moment. He wanted to lounge on the sundeck reading his academic papers and not have to deal with a pack of rowdy students.
“Certainly. I’d be happy to do that,” she answered. “I know how one’s research suffers when class prep is a priority,” she added archly. He appeared not to notice her tone of voice. They entered the dining room in silence.
★
That morning she ended her class by presenting a poem that Volodya had written out for her: an excerpt from “Spring in Leningrad” by the Russian war poet, Margarita Aliger. Jennifer told the students the story of the Leningrad mother who had suffered during the siege and how her son, Volodya, had been moved by this poem. Despite her own sense of loss, Hank’s bad mood and Ted’s hangover, the students rallied and they recited it in Russian, then took a stab at translating it.
“O city without light, without water!
One hundred and twenty five grams of blockade rationed bread…
Savage rumbling of trouble
from the pitiless, dead sky.
Manolis Aligizakis 