Month: January 2026

Jazz with Ella

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excerpt

“You too,” she said sincerely. “We’ll miss you.” She smiled at Vera who nodded. “There’s something I’d like to give you.” She reached into her purse and removed her wedding ring from where she had tucked it. “You might need this. Please take it. It brought me happiness for a while.” Paul nodded. Vera took the ring wordlessly. Her eyes filled with tears.
“Uh, aren’t you forgetting something else?” asked David.
“The leather jacket? It’s in my cabin—for you.” They all laughed.
“Hey, thanks. But I was actually thinking about what we should say to people back in Canada. Do you have any family at all, Paul?”
He shook his head.
“Any friends who might report you missing?”
“Not any who’d really care. Jen’s been my best friend. Oh, but you can tell Dr. Sommer at the Russian department what happened and tell her that she’s an excellent teacher. I couldn’t have done this without her. But otherwise, no, there is no one. My mother’s been dead a long time now, and so has my grandmother who was my guardian. My dad disappeared—probably because of gambling debts.”
By now Vera was crying openly. “You have family now,” she told him, and Jennifer was overjoyed to see how eagerly he hugged her.
★
Just three blocks away, their tour guide, Natasha Alexeyevna Kuchkov, was sitting on the warm cement buttress of a public fountain. Two other women dressed in sarafani, light cotton dresses, were dipping their bare feet in the fountain’s pool and giggling. Such behaviour was not for her. In any case, the telegram recently received from her director had induced a cooling effect right to the bone. Phone me directly you reach Ulyanovsk, it had ordered. They don’t know what it’s like in the field any more, she thought. When we arrive, I have visits to organize, vouchers to fill in, local staff to supervise. How much time do they think I have?
Thus she had been almost relieved when the rebellious students asked for some afternoon time off, though she wouldn’t admit as much to them. It had given her an opportunity to find the nearest postal and telegraph office where the long distance phone booths were located. She dialled her director on his personal private line and after some buzzing, whining, and several hang-up clicks, she was finally put through.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562892

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

The Unquiet Land

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excerpt

“He’s given them up. He doesn’t like Dublin very much anymore. He wants to stay in the village and work in the quarry again. He says that’s the only life for him.”
“Oh Nora, that’s wonderful news.” Mother Ross was almost weeping. “I didn’t want you to go to Dublin. It’s so far away. I think that was worrying your father too. He was beginning to think you’d leave and he’d never see you or Dermot again.”
“He’s silly, Mammy.”
“He’s old, Nora. You said so yourself.”
The two fell silent, each distracted by separate thoughts of Finn MacLir.
Then Mother Ross sighed, sipped her tea, and stirred in another spoonful of sugar. “There’s shortbread in the biscuit tin by your elbow.”
“No thank you. The tea’s fine on its own.”
“Push the tin over here then,” Mother Ross said. “I’ll have some.”
Nora did as her stepmother requested. “I think you’re eating too much, Mammy.”
“Oh, don’t you start, Nora. I get enough of that from Dr Starkey.” Mother Ross took a bite from her wedge of shortbread, ate it with obvious relish and then said, “So Flynn’s decided to stay in the village. The big city’s not for him after all.”
“No. He keeps thinking he ought to be in Dublin. His Uncle Finnegan there is very fond of him. But every time he goes to Dublin he gets homesick for the mountains. He’s up at the quarry now to see about keeping his job there. He’s been in Dublin since the general election in December, over two months now. But they’ll take him back. He’s a good worker. He’s a Drumard stone-man, Mammy. He’ll always be a Drumard stone-man.”
Or stone dead. The thought rushed unbidden into Mother Ross’s head, but unlike the voluble palm reader her tongue refused to give it utterance. Nevertheless she felt impelled to say something, if only to warn Nora. Perhaps she should talk to her husband and remind him that his responsibilities to her and their son were greater than his commitment to Republican idealism.
“I’d be a lot happier,” she said, “if Flynn Casey wasn’t also Rebel Casey.” Mother Ross clasped her stepdaughter’s hand to emphasise the seriousness of her words. “Nora, I’m very fond of Flynn. I know that a lot of people don’t like him, and perhaps some of them have good cause not to. But, Nora, there’s a mood in the country. An ugly mood. If there’s going to be trouble, Flynn’s going to be mixed up in it, and I’m afraid for both of you. And for little Dermot.”

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562888

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763203

The Circle

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excerpt

13


IT’S FRIDAY, the last day of September, and Emily and Talal’s flight to
Baghdad is scheduled for four in the afternoon. They have to get to the
airport two hours earlier to check their bags. Emily hasn’t flown for a few
years, and the thought of the long flight makes her nervous. Even though she
knows Talal will be beside her, she has been jumpy since morning. Talal was
up earlier, so he prepared the breakfast then went back to bed before she was
up, and even his intention of a fun morning of lovemaking was turned down
by Emily.
“What is it, my love?” he asks her when she gets up.
He notices tears in her eyes, takes her in his arms and asks again, “What is it,
my love?”
“I’m scared. I don’t know why I have such a bad feeling this morning. I’m
thinking about the long flight, and it is making me paranoid. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize, sweetheart, for being apprehensive; most
people are, although they don’t like to talk about it. However flight security has
improved so much over the past several years, we’ll be very safe. Please don’t feel
bad; we’re going to have a nice flight, you’ll see. And don’t forget I’ll be with you
all the way, so don’t worry.”
They sit and have a light breakfast but Emily has a hard time getting her food
down. She tries to relax and her mood improves only when Talal comments on
how pretty she looks this morning. Her shoulder-length hair is done up and held
with a clip, her eyes are the brightest he has ever seen them, the skin on her face is
so smooth and balanced; he is mesmerized by a feeling of love and caring for this
forty-seven-year-old woman whose body he has explored to the innermost detail
during the time that they have been together. Talal is extremely happy he will be
able to introduce her to his motherland as well as to his brother and sister and
grandfather. Yet, he wonders how she is going to see Iraq, sincel the war and its
aftermath.
Emily takes her watering can around the house to water the plants before
they go. Talal’s phone rings; it is Hakim.
“Hey.”
“Hi, are you coming to pick us up?”

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562817

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978186524

In the Quiet After Slaughter

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excerpt

Back on the road, rain-streaked fronds slapping at the windshield,
parrots screeching in the jacaranda trees, Paco asks if Witherspoon
would care to meet his fiancée, Carmela.
– A little detour, he says. It’s not far.
They arrive after nightfall. The settlement is without electricity;
oil-fueled torches illuminate the village’s muddy streets. Witherspoon
unfolds a map on the hood of the Datsun and searches with his flashlight.
– What do you call this place again?
– Absolución, Paco says. It means — he consults his phrasebook
— forgiveness.
Carmela’s folks operate a popular eatery. It has a thatched roof, a
fire smoldering in the stone hearth. The food is superb and the
fiancée as lovely as Paco had claimed. She has copper skin that in the
glow of the charcoal embers shines like a newly minted coin.
– Carmela has two sisters, Paco says. Look.
There’s an enclosure walled in by mosquito netting at the rear of
the family compound. Witherspoon is able to make out a pair of silhouettes.
One sister sways in a hammock, an arm lazily draped over
the side as though her fingers trail through water. The other is
perched on a stool. She is raking a brush through her hair, the back
arched like half a parenthesis, thighs spread.
The Canadian thinks to himself: Forgiveness. What a strange
name for a village.
A backlog of vehicles has been idled by the roadblock. Lined up
around the bend are a few squeaky transport trucks, a second-class
bus with threadbare tires, a taxi painted with dust. Youngsters
trickle from the jungle to sell refreshments to the inconvenienced.
His guard off scrounging a cigarette, Witherspoon stole a glimpse
of the swelling crowd. Some huddled in the shade, readying their
bribes. Others made the sign of the cross, wincing with every blow
administered to Witherspoon’s new friend. The ballplayer supposed
all were as terrified as he—evidently the point of the delay.
The welts on Paco’s face were beginning to change colour.
Witherspoon wondered how much more his friend could endure—
wondered how much he himself could endure. And was he next?

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562874

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0980897971

Nikos Engonopoulos – Poems

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Glorifying Hymn For the Women we Love
the women we love are like pomegranates
they come and find us
during the night
when it rains
they erase our loneliness with their breasts
they dive deep in our hair
and decorate it
like tears
like gleaming shores
like pomegranates
the women we love are swans
their parks
live only in our hearts
their feathers are
the feathers of angels
their statues are our bodies
the beautiful tree lines are the same
as they are on the tips of their toes
erect
they come near us
as if swans kiss us
on our eyes
the women we love are lakes
among their reads
their fiery lips whistle
our beautiful birds swim in their waters
and then
when they fly away

https://draft2digital.com/book/3744799

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

Katerina Anghelaki Rooke – Selected Poems

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Where I Was Born one Could Lose everything
In the place I was born one could
lose everything.
Time eats the words
and from inside the words
the ravaged eyes are spent
even the kisses
and the need to suffer.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562965

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763521

Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume IV

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Orestes

Unprepared, yes — I can’t do it; I lack that analogy,
suitable to the landscape, to the hour, to things and
events — no, it’s not faint-heartedness — unprepared
before the front step of the deed, totally unprepared
before the goal others have set for me. Why others
control our fate a little? Why they impose it on us and
we accept it?
How can they weave our whole year with just a few
threads of our moments, usually a rough, dark weaving,
thrown over us like a sack covering us from top to bottom,
covering all our face and hands, in which we’ve entrusted
a knife — completely unfamiliar — which lights all the
around landscape, not ours — I know this, not ours. And
how our fate happens to accept this, while it pulls away
and observes us and our strange fate, as if foreign to us,
mute, austere, uninvolved, resigned, not even with
the expression of a magnanimity or stoicism, without
even disappearing, without dying, we’ll remain a
plaything of an alienated fate, not doubting or split
in two. There she is, sleepy — with one of her eyes closed
and the other dilated letting us see that she observes us
and discerns our endless vibrating without approving
nor disapproving it.
Two different pulls correspond to each of our two legs,
one distances itself more and more from the other
with wide strides to the point of dismemberment; and
the head is a knot that holds together the divided body
while, I believe, legs are made to move one at a time,
in the same rhythm, to the same direction, down to
the plain, next to a bunch of grapes, up to the far away
rosy horizon, transferring our body in one piece — or
were we perhaps made for that great, unearthly stride
over the horrible precipice, over the graves and ours?
I don’t know.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763815

Wheat Ears

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Athena II
Perplexed Athena gazed at the sea
as if to say the balance of the world
was based on it: fresh, liberal
fountain blessed by the spring
like the palms
of the beardless poet
reverently turned inwards
immense sea bearing gifts to
my endless wandering when
I discovered seeded fields
orchards with lemon trees
and grapevines ready
for the harvest
stars gracing rosy-cheeks
blue domes of temples
each with different armies of
words and dreamy images
hopeless this misery
that I couldn’t escape
unless again I evoke Her spirit
logistical algorithm
Her divine intervention
a direction I was meant
to follow to the bitter end
when finally in the next room
they were already enjoying
the opened bottle of bubbly

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

Poodie James

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excerpt

Spanger stepped back.
“If there’s evidence to support your suspicion, we’ll decide what
steps to take. The law mentions probable cause.”
Torgerson’s face darkened.
“I think, Mr. Police Chief, that when you take a closer look at
those tracks and that wreck that killed a man, you’ll find probable
cause to hold those two for a while. Now, why don’t you just have
some of your men round them up?”
“And charge them with what?”
“Suspected criminal activity. Material witnesses to a wrongful
death. Mopery. What do I care? Just get them in jail. The town’ll
be a better place with them off the street.”
“Mr. Mayor,” Spanger said. “We ought to discuss this with the
city attorney. It could lead to a lot of legal trouble. You can’t just
invent charges and lock people up.”
“Oh, those two don’t strike me as jailhouse lawyers, Darwin.
Don’t worry about that. Hell, one of ’em can’t even speak.”
“Mr. Mayor,” Spanger said, “I won’t help you use this train
wreck to make Poodie James and the hobos part of your election
campaign.”
Torgerson smiled and turned away from the wreck toward his
police chief. His eyes are the color of dirty ice, Spanger thought.
“Why, Darwin, I haven’t even decided to run again. You just go
ahead and investigate. You’ll find enough to lead you to your duty.
I expect you to protect the citizens of this town.”
Torgerson turned and strode down the tracks toward 13th
Street. Spanger watched until the mayor got into his big blue
Packard and drove away.
Albert Swan, the city attorney, cleared his throat and raised his fingers
to smooth his tie. As he spoke, he looked past the police chief.
Spanger turned to see if someone had entered the office. They
were alone.
“Darwin,” Swan said, “we don’t much get into criminal matters
in this office. It’s mostly city business, you know.”

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562868

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08W7SHCMV

Kariotakis-Polydouri, The Tragic Love Story

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Tribute
Forehead of silver and your blue
eyes reflected beautifully
as you opened the piano
two fresh roses shivered in the vase
like flowers your temples bloomed.
Your hands fought and won
against the keys that retrieved
creating notes, the melody reward.
We listened. And the emotions-slaves
regained their freedom.
Years have gone, well I don’t remember,
though I believe that you had also sung
unless the nightingales sang
whether silent or talking your lips are fountain
when my years are but tired deer.
Butterflies will always flutter
leaving the pollen on the hand
goodbye only but a rustle, your hand as silk
when you vanished; butterflies
will always fly out through the window.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562951

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763459