VOICES OF THE SEA
Drink your wine in the dark tavern by the sea,
now that the autumn rains have started,
drink it with sailors facing you and stooping fishermen,
men whom poverty and angry seas have punished.
Drink your wine so that your soul grows free
and if grim Fate arrives smile upon it
and if new sufferings befall you let them also drink
and when Hades comes, calmly offer Him a drink as well.
excerpt
“What are you doing in those clothes, Rachael? You look like a
hippie.” The words had only just left his mouth when he realized that
was exactly her intent.
Looking up at him, she giggled. “We were danshing. It wash … it
wash fun.” Her head fell back onto the sofa and she closed her eyes.
Ronald could not bring himself to move from where he stood staring
at her. He had rescued Rachael from many scrapes, or worse, but
this time he was at a total loss. What could he do with her? She was
drunk, that much was obvious. Ronald had seen the signs before but
never, God forbid, in his own family. He had the overwhelming urge
to sit down and cry. Taking a tight rein on his emotions, he leaned
over her, took her arm and tried to pull her to her feet.
“Don’t you dare go to sleep. I’ll make some strong coffee, then I’m
taking you home.” Let Morley and Tyne deal with her; this time she’s
gone too far.
“Let me sleep, please Ronnie,” she begged.
In her plea Ronald heard again the cries of a little girl – lost, cold
and near death in a frozen wasteland created by a prairie blizzard.
Hesitating for only a moment, he said, “Okay, you can sleep it off in
my bed. Come on, I’ll help you upstairs.”
“Oh no, you won’t, Ronald. She’ll sleep down here for what’s left
of the night.”
At the sound of Aunt Millie’s unusually stern voice, he swung around.
She was standing in the doorway of the downstairs hallway. Gray hair
formed a cloud around her pale face. One hand clutched a terrycloth robe
around her ample bosom; the other hand held out a long flannel nightgown
and a blanket in the direction of the startled girl on the sofa.
“Get out of those clothes and put this on. You’ll stay on the sofa
tonight, young lady. Ronnie needs his sleep. I’ll talk to you in the
morning when you’ve sobered up.” Millie Harper turned abruptly
towards her bedroom.
Sandals
Young boy with sandals
and a hole in his shirt elbow
ideal poem laughter
like glory of tattered books
on the table where coffee
steams above your cup
you grasp the sugar bowl
gaze through blue glass
the young boy chases
umbrella shadows on the grass
while others fight chimeras at the borders
or hunt for peace behind barricades
raising unfurled flags they sing marching
paeans and glory myths for the
fallen boy with sandals
The Apple Tree
Most of the times, I think for free
with no pencil. Gain and loss steam up
as, with severed arms, I harvest
the ripened fruit.
How can you tell the gender of a tree?
I remember a lazy apple tree
which imagined apples in its armpits
yet it resisted the spring flowers.
Brainless apple tree: its rustle but
sobs and hiccups
of the root pus. An internal sob
for all who reach their purpose
and are happy with the dowry.
If I now mention that apple tree
is because such imagination
of fruit was considered
an insult to nature like heresy
to the dogma of creation.
Desolate tree, unproductive.
They cut it down,
burned it
and its flames lick my last branches
as long as I’m talking to you.
Manolis Aligizakis 