Month: March 2026

Jazz with Ella

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excerpt

But David, there’s another thing and it’s a real mystery.” She described the telegram that had been sent from Kazan. “That was a dreadful day trying to avoid Chopyk’s sheep herding efforts, trying to see the Gorky Museum and not think about Paul, all at the same time. Did you…?” But David was shaking his head.
Jennifer felt a wave of fear again. “You were one of the few who broke away from the group so I thought it must have been you trying to surprise me. Please tell me it’s not someone else trying to pull a fast one. ”
“I didn’t send any telegram. If you think about it, it would have to be someone who knew Volodya’s address—and knew the code words.”
“No, it didn’t have the code words in it. He thought I’d forgotten them and came anyway.”
“Natasha? She would have quick access to telegrams…she knew his address from the telegram he sent you…”
“Natasha—it has to be her.” Jennifer was stunned. “But why? I don’t get it. You know I suspected her back when the other telegram came in. She’s from Leningrad, you know, and they might have known one another while he worked for Intourist.”
“I’ve thought there’s more to her than what we’re seeing. That’s gotta be it, but you won’t get a chance to ask her because we’re trying to avoid her like the plague right now.” David began to sort through the closet for the jacket and shoes. “Do you know if she caught up to us here at the hotel?”
“Oh, for sure, but I don’t think she knows what rooms we’re in. If you hadn’t told me your room number, I’m sure I couldn’t have got it from the desk clerk. They seemed terminally uninterested.”
“Listen, why don’t you ask Volodya if he knows Natasha? Let’s sleep on this matter,” he yawned politely, “and get you-know-who fixed up with clothes in the morning.”
But when she returned to her room, Volodya had fallen into a deep sleep sprawled across the utilitarian single bed. His pack was open, contents spilled onto the floor, with his clothes hanging neatly on the racks. Coaching would have to wait.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562892

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

Arrows

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excerpt

…didn’t address me. We ate in silence, and I contented myself with
what he offered me. I knew it was pointless to discuss Tamanoa, to
protest.
“Do you know why I have decided you will not die like your
servant?” he finally asked, breaking the silence, scowling at the fish
he was eating.
“I think God must have told you to let me live.”
He snorted.
“I am not to tell you why. It is for a reason for someone else to say.
But I know it took courage for you to come to us. And now I see the
way you have mourned your servant. Pariamanaco has told me. I
had never believed it possible that a white man could cry over an
Indian, as you call us, half-breed or not.”
“Tamanoa was my friend,” I said, feeling sadness and anger
welling within me. I dropped the bite of plantain I had pinched
between myfingers onto the plantain leaf. “Why did you kill him?”
“Half-breeds, they are traitors. They are not white, not one of us.
They learn our ways and betray us.”
“Tamanoa was good,” I said a bit more sharply than I had
intended.
He gave me a derogatory grimace.
“Why did you save her?” he asked, referring to his wife.
“I didn’t, God did.”
He glared at me briefly, but then turned his attention back to the
fish and cassava.
“I want what is good for you,” I continued. “I want you and your
people to see the Creator when you die.”
He gave me a fearsome scowl.
“I’ll see Mareoka. I am shaman, don’t need you for that.”
“Only born-again people can see him,” I paraphrased, for
understandably they did not have a word for baptism. “That is the
message I bring.”
“Born again? How can you be born again? That is crazy.”
“You are born again when I pour water over your head in the
name of the Father, the Son and the . . .”—suddenly it struck me …

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562848

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522

The Sleigh-Drawing Horses

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Deer Park at the Whirl Hill
Our young self
is given back now
by the fallow-deers at Whirl Hill,
though they are not
the red-deer princes
of the Hungarian forests,
their crown is not arboreous,
they are just mild, spotted-backed
members of the huge deer-family.
But even so,
in all of their flutters
the Psalm of Psalms
is buzzing, the number 42,
and our „ancient”,
now 45 years old thirst.
Though we are not
a pair of young dears any more,
we are humming together
the very song of our
thirsty beginnings.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/192676384X

Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume VI

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Not Another
No more, not that disputed shape, a big
body undivided on the metal bed with
its other side turned to the wall. I, he said,
on a persistent exercise of silence, on a
persistent exercise of the one-digit numbers
and the counting, as calm as possible, yet
hearable, three, six, nine, with the simple
shape of the lips like when you give the most
distanced kiss to the hand of the dead man.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763785

Nikos Engonopoulos – Poems

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when it finds me
naked
walking around
it dresses me,
the rain,
with unbelievably shining
outfits
as I walk,
and places around me
mythical riches
sets
and decorations”
he now saunters to the “end”
among the crowds, music and popular joy
and mixes
becomes one with
the crowd
and feels
sometimes
like a king among his subjects
and other times
perhaps the same moment
like
an exiled ruler
among
strangers
and unfamiliar
people

https://draft2digital.com/book/3744799#print

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

Introspection

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Prophet
His prophetic pneuma, his sense of eternal freedom, the endlessly creative mind of the giant who stood before a catastrophe and saw decaying humanity. He sensed that a future benevolence appeared before his eyes, before his prophetic vision, while he had his eyes closed. He saw the new race of men and women who stood opposite the morality of humbleness and against the well-fed bellies of priests and deacons, and he saw the creators of immortal boys and girls. This was his epiphany and his fate: life played like a drama, like a historical stage show of the pneuma with its delirium and tragedy, with a catharsis from the first moment, he realized that it was his freedom to think and to create his immortal Übermensch

https://draft2digital.com/book/4118210#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763777

Hours of the Stars

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Altar
Our blood fiery red.
When the newborns climb up the golden hills and
autumn bestows its gifts
unto the naked rain knees
cactuses listen to
the unsuspecting footsteps of Abel.
Dawn readies its slaughter and
the evening sacrifice
sprinkles the door-posts of the west.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763408

Tasos Livaditis – Selected Poems

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Suspicious Encounters
Perhaps he was an imaginary person, and for this reason, more
dangerous; I usually met him in the hallway or behind the hospital.
The first time he pretended he didn’t know me, John,” I said to him,
“Weren’t we hanged together?”— since then, I am of a different
than my true age
like what will shutter us is a detail that has gone unnoticed
and time will come when we’ll remember it.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3751267

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763831

Medusa

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Presidential Campaign
Well-covered presidential campaign
She said with a dry voice
Blonde media anchor
stirred uncomfortably
Latest debate results
about the winner and who’s
condemned to Purgatory
comedy of Erring parrots
repeating numbers
rigged convention
she said apologetically
baptizing the viewers in the cold
water of reality
newscast misinformed
the viewers of their collective
fortune to be citizens of the most
well-informed nation on earth

https://draft2digital.com/book/3745982#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763769

HEAR ME OUT

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One More Chance
Your hand was on the car and you tried to stop me from leaving.
“Give us another chance” you kept on saying and I tasked you to let go of the car as I was ready to step on the gas.
I simply told you, I intended to give that chance only to myself.
And I drove away.
I didn’t regret it. I recalled of course all the events but I never regretted it.
I also asked for your forgiveness for a few things I believed I was wrong.
But I never regretted it.
I had to leave.
The next person in my life made me understand that I was unfair toward you regarding a few things.
One has to live something worse to finally understand.
Yet, I never regretted leaving. I left when I had to leave.
When something is wrong you need to find the strength and courage to leave.
And now, although it hurts, I’m gone.
I know I’ve done right.
No reason to stay in something you know isn’t what you want.
And compromise isn’t my thing.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562946

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763807