Today and Just Before Today and just before light covers the sky I hear bells chiming faraway in the city. Bells that I hear as if they slowly spread evil and solemnly stir the remaining darkness. Where have I left my sweet childish heart? In what era, in which bell’s chiming I’ve tied it? In what era and today I’ve kneeled on my weak knees and prayed? A prayer to beauty, to the forgotten mother to ignorance, the smile, the voice of a dream listening to the saddened chime of the bell today that talks of the untimely death.
Caricature A bad imitation of a human, faceless, like the company he served, arrived and hiding the packaged freedom silently in his pockets deaf freedom choked from the excess lard he had consumed in their last feast sorrowful leftover of our old glory and I, saddened by the momentary loss of logic leaned and smelled the tiny jasmine flower, letting its aroma fills my nostrils emotional that I had become to the point of tears: then, it wasn’t far away anymore, it wasn’t impossible. It was here on the dusty sidewalk here it was the Heavens into which I surely entered
…couldn’t even see where they had got through the fence. It must have taken some interesting gymnastics for these four-legged wonders to maneuver through a three-wire fence without ripping it down, but, sure enough, here they were. Joel even found himself wondering if they could have jumped the fence. He had seen the deer do it. But as Joel compared the anatomy of a cow to that of a deer, he chuckled at himself in a way that made his horse wonder what was happening. To the horse, this expression of human emotion was something new about Joel. The sorrel gelding waited to see what the rider who sat on him would decide to do. Sizing up the situation, Joel realized that if he didn’t get these three heifers back to where they belong, some of their friends would want to join them for the party. And judging from how lean the pickings were on the other side of the fence and the look of the visiting heifers, Joel didn’t think it would be long before they would devour the grass in his pasture, which is supposed to feed his horses. And if the advance party of three were joined by their friends, it wouldn’t take long before Joel had a serious problem— two- or three-hundred head of cattle would make mincemeat out of this pasture. After contemplating the possibilities, Joel decided that his best bet would be to open the gate that was about 300 yards down the fence line and try to push the three heifers back to their own pasture. He was hoping that the gate was far enough from the herd so that the herd wouldn’t all rush through the opening into his pasture. This was going to be very tricky. Slowly, he moved the sorrel gelding down the fence line to the gate. The gelding was carefully watching the cows and they certainly weren’t spooking him. Reaching the gate, Joel undid the rope, and stepping back, he set the fence wire and poles down to the side. Sliding back into the saddle, Joel pointed the gelding back to the three heifers that were grazing, unconcerned with the approaching rider and horse, or anticipating their eviction. Gently, cautiously, and slowly, Joel and the sorrel gelding pushed https://www.amazon.com/dp/0980897955
The captain merely laughed. Finten continued, “I should have known your words were false. I will not submit to be collared like a dog. I am a priest of God.” “Yes, you sound like one.” The Norse leader stepped into the pen and came face to face with the fiery Finten. “I am Hjálmar, Captain Hjálmar.” Taller by far and stripped to the waist, he lunged at Father Finten, pinning the scruffy priest to the deck. The captain grinned at his victim and spoke almost in a whisper. “You are about to have your first bath and trim, my hairy friend, and I am delighted to be your bather. Washing priests is my specialty.” The Norse crew gathered to watch the sport. They shouted encouragement to their captain like rowdy boys at a schoolyard fight. Finten struggled, kicked and punched. Momentarily, he gained his freedom, but was tackled and held down by the Norse captain once more. “Never will you force such an unholy and unchristian rite on me. Bathing is immoral and evil and unnatural,” Finten howled. He thrashed at his opponent, but was no match for the powerful wrestler. Captain Hjálmar stripped him of his cassock and sat sideways on his heaving chest. He was forceful but almost gentle at the same time, addressing his remarks to Finten in a calm, steady voice. “No different than any other man I have known. You do have all your parts I see. I had been told that priests of Rome were snipped of their manly marvels to keep them from a woman’s bed.” “I’ll snip you of your manly marvels, you boastful pagan beast,” Finten yelled. He struggled to cover his privates but two Norse crewmen held his arms to the deck while another two grabbed his feet. Finten squirmed wildly from side to side while Hjálmar snapped the cord of twine that held a copper Celtic cross around the priest’s neck. The captain flung the metal object in an arc to the white-capped waves. “By Aegir, ruler of the seas, no thrall of mine will spread his fleas and stench of sweat and piss and shit upon my ship.” Then, he tossed the priest’s garment to his lieutenant, “Here, Bjorn, boil this nest of fleas for rags while I rid this Roman monk of sanctimonious stink. Phew.” Dipping into the sudsy bucket of salt water, Hjálmar lathered a sheepskin cloth with a block of bright yellow soap and proceeded to scrub Finten’s heaving torso, still talking to him in the same steady tone. “Ah, you should be bathed by a woman. Then you would no longer wish to be so full of vermin. We men of the Danelaw, bathe, comb our hair, and change our woollen garments on every Laugerdag, which you call Saturday. We scrub no matter the season, even when we are absent months on end from wives and sweethearts.” The Norseman looked around to his crew who were enjoying such sport on a chilly morning at sea. “Ah, yes. Our wives and sweethearts – may they never meet.” “I will not submit to pagan practices,” the struggling monk bellowed. “You, my friend, were created by the god Ríg to be a servant to all. And so you will be, and work among my other thralls. Only those in mourning need not wash. It is said that Odinn, king of the gods, left his hair unwashed as a sign of mourning for the death of his son, Baldr. You are neither a god nor in mourning.” “Of course I’m in mourning. I’m in mourning for dead friends and lost liberty.” Father Finten’s quick reply did nothing to change his situation. Alternating between the sheepskin cloth and a brush of pig bristles, Hjálmar scrubbed the struggling monk from head to toe.
Timer Lamp on the side table timer switches at the perfect hour every dusk the room shadows each night the lamp glows you bask in the grand house all its sturdy windows and when you think escape automation clicks like clock works the sting of your guilt déjà vu and you prod eternity or where your grace leads you
And gypsies came who built their lives like their houses 86 founded on horse carriages rolling along and pulled by cows that have something of the elephants and of the travelling ships and as they groan and echo passing over rough paths and streets when suddenly houses stop with the panting gypsies close behind they resemble as something holy and great like Epitaphios or the Holy Arc. Here are the Turkish gypsies who sleep in tents, the pure race. They always travel in plains and in deserts the ones with their invincible souls their straight and erect bodies and the wildness of their souls shines in their lighted eyes the soft and the powerful as if made of steel and sting; they’re joyous in the snow and in the rain, in the sunshine they celebrate the best festival on bare earth as Hades finds the man naked and chokes him to death in the ripped tent whipped by the wind that charges and wilts men as if they’re flowers.
An old woman crosses herself: Lord of all Powers; of the Western Powers of course A street sweeper shivers in the cold his teeth rattle playing a subterranean angry song hey, bosses who yelled? No one it blows Workers in the produce market, laborers using chainsaws, workers unloading fertilizers, longshoremen, laundress, quarry workers the crowd of workers carrying the flour sacks, eighty kilos each, old women cleaning the public washrooms with their eyes swollen and red from the ammonia the wind howls in side streets, squares train stations, electric wires, bells, the upcoming years howl Two workers talk in a low tone voice you can’t hear what they say you only see their lips moving like hands ready to strike A shining car stops two bald-headed men and a woman with a big ass disembark the nation demands sacrifices the banks spread over the wide sidewalks like prehistoric beasts that digest their prey
Neutral Neutral colour of the page before the words inviolable void uncommitted absence plan for a dream unrealized before your hand takes the pencil and draws emptiness on the whitewash page like the immaculate skin of a conflagrated woman you touch painting of a mountain peak adorned by snow and you say, before I write a single word the poem sings eloquently
“But aren’t you trying to change souls with your sermons? Aren’t you trying to make them more acceptable to your God?” Finn leaned forward on the table, his massive hands cupped around his glass of wine. “The soul cannot be so untouchable.” “With the word of God one can indeed reach into the soul,” Padraig consented. “But no instrument devised by man has the same power.” “Ah, we have a conflict here,” said Finn. “Sweeney, fill up my glass and top up your own. Any of you others care to join us, help yourselves to whatever you want. That stage is getting set again. See why I prefer to act than to watch?” “You don’t act, Finn,” Sweeney observed; “you direct.” He poured the wine for Finn. The last drops from the decanter he shook into his own glass. His sunset face was blazing crimson, with purple only in the shadows. He replaced the empty decanter in the centre of the table and turned up the wick of the low-burning lamp. Shadows flickered on the walls, on the dark sideboard and the cabinets, on the tall clock and the pale porcelain of the Victory. “So, Padraig,” Finn went on, “you think the word is mightier than the surgeon’s knife.” “The Word that was in the beginning, yes; the Word of God that was made flesh as Jesus Christ.” “What do you say to that, young Clifford?” Finn asked. “Does the Word of God tell us more of man and nature, life and death, than your brain and blade will ever reveal?” “You’re confusing two separate realms, Finn,” Clifford argued in a precise, dry voice. “The brain is a material thing. We probe into it, repair it, understand it, with the aid of material instruments. The soul is immaterial. We change it, if we change it at all, with immaterial instruments: with words, thoughts, ideas, emotions, that reach it through the mind.” “Body and mind; matter and spirit; material, immaterial.” Finn repeated the words reflectively. “That sounds reasonable enough. Conflict resolved.” He sipped some wine, then looked at Clifford. “You say that the soul is reached through the mind. So you separate mind and soul?” Clifford looked around the table self-consciously. Michael was asleep with his head fallen forward on his chest. Seamus and Sweeney stared at their wine and looked as though they wished they too were asleep. Only Padraig, facing Finn across the length of the dish-and-bottle-laden table, stayed alert, leaning back in his chair with his left hand dangling and his right hand holding a half-emptied glass of wine.
Manolis Aligizakis 