Mistral
It swirls with mysticism,
around the plane tree bore
the playful Mistral
exhuming its secret cadence
smooth visitor on fiery skin
taking what isn’t his
desire like a sin written
with stark red letters and
the wind keeps on swirling
as though trying to conceal
your blushing, that I see you
naked on your towel next
to the whoosh of the wave
plane tree still at the mercy
of Mistral serpent that
swirls around the trunk
promising eternity through
the lines of this poem
Party
My friends invited me to a party
I won’t turn them down. I’ll go to forget.
I’ll wear my red dress
and I’ll envy my beauty
the corpse I carry inside me
I’ll affectionately take along.
I’ll be joyous and secretive,
I, the messenger of Hades
my moribund friends won’t
get drunk though they’ll drink a lot
I’ll stand next to them, a beautiful
curse, they won’t suspect me
then they’ll ask me to sing a song
perhaps hoping for an ochre joy
though my song will be so real
that suddenly they’ll turn silent.
Erotic Fecundity
In the harbours of the world
with each sailing
the eternal man on deck
simultaneously a baby and an old man
doesn’t know which route to choose
defenceless heart in the crypts
of seasons
on the dock, unfamiliar faces pass
on invisible rails
the shadow of the happy child
at the far end of the quay an imaginary figure
who I embraced eons ago
postponed encounter of souls
imprisoned in differing destinies.
Why am I here and not somewhere else?
Have I existed?
Do I exist?
Am I one of my concepts
sprung out of a dream?
Wind the first word God uttered
wind the birth and death
wind the wisdom
the unexpected signal of erotic fecundity
on the first day of creation.
Pilgrimage
I went to my family’s home
a pilgrimage
to the place I once existed
a baby
in the arms of the saintly mother
I found four walls defining
the length and width
of the small space
in the embrace of the infinite
my first cry I discovered
between two rocks to the west
where the wind incised
unerasable marks and
in the vague darkness of the corner
where my crib sat
and I spoke
time is tough
in the embrace of timelessness
I went to my family’s home
a pilgrimage
to the space where I took
my first steps
a baby
the lone window to the north
tightly shut
the lone door leaned to the east
as if wishing to open towards
the path I was meant to follow
and I spoke
Oh god, so simple is the world
so simple is life
Oh god, clearly defined
is my path to greatness
excerpt
Then he reached to the side, and turned on the
tap of the small bar sink, and filled a pitcher with water. Lastly, he opened
another cupboard, lifted down two tumblers, poured a goodly measure
of whiskey into both, and splashed water into the glasses.
“This is how you and I are going to do business,” he said. “We’re going
to drink.”
‘In the middle of the day?” Ken asked.
“What’s that got to do with anything? We’re going to drink.”
“Why do we have to drink?” Ken eyed the whiskey with revulsion. “My
guess is it’s to do with, ‘get a man drunk and you’ll find out who he is.’”
“Who told you that?”
“My father.”
“I’d like to meet your father.” He took a large swallow. “So, tell me
about yourself.”
Ken told his story, while he watched Fraser drink until the bottle was
empty. He drank a bottle every day, he said, and he was as proud of that
as the fact that he was a one match a day man. He struck a match in the
morning to light his first cigarette, and every subsequent cigarette, for the
rest of the day, was lit from the stub of the last. “It takes discipline to do
that.”
“I want you to come to the gallery two or three days a week. I want to
hear your story. I want you to tell me your feelings, your thoughts, your
understanding of the universe – everything. I want to listen to you. I want
to hear you.”
For several weeks, Ken visited and talked, while Fraser downed a bottle
of rye and smoked an eternal chain of cigarettes. “You have a passion that
is white-hot and I love it,” he said. “We have all these artists around, and
they’re all limp. I want to see a man with a paintbrush in one hand and a
sword in the other. That’s you.”
One day, Ken asked Fraser why he never saw the paintings he sold to
him. “Where do you put them?”
“I’ve sold them.”
“All of them?”
Yes, all of them.”
“Oh my gosh. Well, that’s terrific.”
“You look surprised.”
“I am.”
“That’s not a very nice thing to say to me. Of course, they’re sold. So,
bring me some more. Go and paint.”
“There’s a limit to my speed.”
“I’m sure there is and I want to find it. I suspect the faster you paint the
better you get. You’re thinking too much. Don’t think. Painting isn’t about
thinking. This is not an intellectual exercise.
excerpt
Tell him I promise his village won’t be damaged, nor his
fields touched. Tell him.”
Losada dismounted and the others followed suit, but he stopped
them with a gesture of his hand. “Infante, Ávila, Galeas,
Maldonado, Pedro and Rodrigo Ponce, Gregorio de la Parra, with
me. Ten harquebusiers and ten pikemen, come forward as well.
Carlos.”
He snapped his fingers, then turned to me. “Friar Salvador, if you
please, come with me. The rest of you, stay where you are, don’t let
your guard down. It wouldn’t be the first time they welcome and
then betray and kill. Keep an eye on your surroundings. At the first
sign of trouble, Juan Suárez, sound the charge. All of you! Diego de
Paradas will command in my absence. Camacho! You are second.
Good luck and may God be with us.”
“Harquebusiers, check your priming!” yelled Diego de Paradas.
Losada put a hand on the hilt of his sword at his hip, as if to
reassure himself. Behind him, the harquebusiers grabbed their
powder flasks and rammed the charges down the muzzles. A flock
of parrots cawed overhead.
“Take good account of everything, Friar Salvador,” said Losada.
“I have a mind to have you write a record of this expedition.”
Recording the expedition would be considered a great honour and a
great responsibility. I nodded. But I knew immediately it would be
impossible to record the truth.
I admired the orderly arrangement of the village. The streets were
smooth under my feet, the houses skilfully made. Earthen pots
steamed over the embers of fires; hammocks were neatly
distributed; baskets and heads of plantain hung from the wooden
structures. Strings of yarn were stretched over primitive looms. On
the sloping thatched roofs, dozens of round cassava cakes dried in
the sun. Human and animal skulls and bones hanging among the
baskets and plantains reminded me of macabre tales of cannibalism.
The Indians stepped aside as we entered the village. They stared
at my feet and then at the rest of me, for I was the only barefooted
Spaniard, let alone one wearing a frock.
Trickle
Your words trickle on paper as if
An unnoticed creek down the slope
on its way to the ocean
But where will you hang
Your coat as the herald
announces the first
spring execution?
Trivial events leave you bereft
of thoughts and what
to do with the bird feeder and
the bird cage?
Birds have flown
to the warm climates
your canary died
you couldn’t fly away with it
you’re left comfortably alone
your words trickling on paper:
your turn to build the world anew
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763769
excerpt
GLANCING UP FROM his reading, Thorp told his
wife he didn’t think Poodie was going to be
much help when picking started. He was too
short, he said, and his legs didn’t work quite
right. He wasn’t going to be any good on a ladder.
He wasn’t big enough to swamp out, couldn’t lift boxes of
apples onto the flatbed. Besides, when the pickers showed up, they
would need both cabins.
“Maybe he can find a real job in town,” Thorp said.
His wife walked over and looked at him across the top of The
Daily Dispatch.
“You tell the kids,” she said.
The next day Thorp took took Poodie along when he toured the
orchard, checking the fruit for size and color. The September air
cooled a little more each night. Days, the sweat rolled off Poodie as
he worked, and the dogs lay panting in the shade.
“You’re going to have company soon,” Thorp told him. “Pickers
coming to get these apples off the trees. Two of them are going to
stay in your cabin. They come up from Arkansas every fall, following
the harvest. I know these men. They’re all right. New family’s
going to be in the other cabin.”
The floppiness of their bib overalls emphasized the leanness and
height of the pickers who moved in with Poodie. They did not sit
on their cots or get up from them, he thought; they folded and
unfolded. He wondered at the length and narrowness of their
heads atop sunburned necks and shoulders roped with muscle.
BARBARIC POEM
You are a wound outside of me
an insult, a scream, blindness,
I do not want you,
something sick wants you,
something foggy, everything that I am
wants you.
The night’s chest breaks and you show up
in the bleak dust of the words of a prayer,
and in the burnt shade of large trees.
Take a sip of me,
soak me up while running!
take a quick sip of me!
Manolis Aligizakis 