17th DAY or ANOTHER ELEGY
Quietness on the first line today
only they didn’t mention how many
scorched bodies they buried in the sand.
I wondered whether the desert
rejects corpses of foreigners
like our desolate bodies.
Twilight. I read letters from
the days between the two World Wars.
Pasternak, Rilke, Tsvetayeva
correspond with words and kiss each other
not knowing whether they’ll ever meet.
Routine
Often you said we needed
to change our habits
a new beginning to commence
a new purpose to seek
hopping to discover hope
and its elements
while all along
you remained resting
in lush recliner
and always upheld
your beliefs while
tightly in hand
you held
the recliner’s lever
excerpt
Caitlin has repented. She has accepted God and Christ. She came to me of her own free will, Finn. Jesus Himself said that ‘there shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance.’”
“This house is no church, Padraig,” Finn said. “You needn’t preach a sermon. Joy there might be in your airy, fairy-story heaven, but your soul-saving here brings nothing but sorrow and sickness and ill-will.”
Padraig made as if to object, but Finn would not stop in his bull’s rush. “Caitlin has become a nervous and sickly wreck. Ask Jinnie there. She’ll tell you. A strong, healthy, independent, life-loving girl reduced to a headachy, lack-lustre prissy. Is that one of your miracles? Is that the kind of transformation that makes you proud and causes joy in heaven? Damn your miracles. Damn your pride and your heavenly joy. And damn you too, Padraig. Damn you for your treachery; your baseness; your snivelling, spineless, milk-and-water cowardice.”
Finn was shouting in a passionate rage. Anger had possessed him, and he did not pause to think of what he was saying. Mother Ross had not believed him capable of such anger, and with Padraig above all. She left lying on the kitchen table the bread she had buttered for the priest and slipped unnoticed into the scullery. She stood in front of the sink, holding tightly to the rim of it, unable to do anything, while Finn’s lashing tongue continued to scourge Padraig in the kitchen.
“You would not love Caitlin like a man. You would not take her as a man would when she offered herself to you. She was too much of a red-blooded woman for your puling sanctity. So now you are trying to water her down to your own thin gruel. You cannot marry her and so you want to make a mincing virgin out of her. A useless nun. A body of dry bones and shrivelled veins and a mind as free and lively as a clod of clay. Damn you, Padraig, I say again. Damn you, damn you, damn you.”
Finn’s loud shouting died to a hoarse whisper, but the fierce anger flashed from his eyes and glowered in the dark cloud of his haggard face. He seemed to be struggling to overcome a powerful desire to vent his anger physically on Padraig’s thin, milk-white body. He was obviously having difficulty in bringing himself under control. Then in a somewhat calmer voice he said, “You have destroyed Caitlin’s happiness with your missionary mumbo-jumbo. You and your type are not concerned about human happiness, but human ‘salvation’—whatever that unfortunate word might mean. Salvation from what? Salvation for what?”
excerpt
When it was over, Poodie reached for his notebook and wrote.
“Come see me.”
“I can’t Poodie.”
He took the notebook back and scribbled, “I want to see you.”
“No, Poodie,” Marcie said. “You’re my friend.”
She saw tension in his jaw. His hand closed around her wrist.
“That hurts,” she said.
He tightened his grip, then let go and tried with his eyes to hold
her there. She began to walk. Back at the edge of the bandstand he
remembered dances at the school and made a bow. Marcie curtsied,
and went off with her football player.
Poodie stayed near the drums until the band stopped playing
and the dancers went home. He helped the drummer carry his
cases outside and stood waving as the bus rolled out of the parking
lot, then started gathering bottles. Pulling his wagon home
through the darkness, he felt his heart pounding. It was like the
rhythm of a drum.
Meeting the Cosmos
I’m stressed over my reawakened youth
that brings life to lightning bolts
rain of meteorites made of unearthly music
imaginary souls that were never born
rebel
shattering the distance
of a perforated world.
Utopia is the wisdom we didn’t understand
gift in the heart of humanity
time has come to express the unsaid
torch bearers of loneliness and dreams
initiates of the jump into chaos
wandering walkers on the dark side of the brain
prophets and searchers of knowledge
that we received
the irreversible time has come
to meet the Cosmos.
Perfection
Stress of the day evaporates
fog over the lonely grave sites
of long forgotten friends
that no one ever visits
and I embrace
your delicate waist
as we walk in rhythm
alike sounding heart beats
entwined fingers
play the same music
and the nightingales conclude
at this moment
you and I
perfection
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…she could stir
her shaking hands imperceptibly
trying in her foggy mind
to recall images of her past greatness
to the day
that with slow steps
she moved,
they moved her,
to the old folk’s home
three children were born
inside this room,
descendants of an honourable family
that vanished
no none of them ever lived,
one of them emigrated to America
the other had a horrible death, a drunkard,
and the third one
is still somewhere
as a lighthouse keeper
here, yes, inside this room
an immoral hand murdered
that brave man
to punish anarchy personally,
he said,
and the poplar leaned and died
and that foggy stain
on the floor
there by the corner
is the blood that was shed,
like a river, from the wound…
Early Years
Laughing benevolence
our soles splashed
into small water pools
filled by moving life and
Further away, our mother stooped,
Mothers always drank bitterness,
and collected sea snails and abalone
My brother, my Fate’s choice
moved his hand swiftly to grab the little crab
Before it took refuge in the crevasse
only a crab could see and
We lived in fear, for our father was
in a land unknown to our little world,
exiled, away from the pangs of the police
informants: such was our luck
that early in life we tasted
the bitter orphan waters
yet like tree branches we stretched
our limbs against the elements
and like birds prematurely, we grew wings
I Brought to Art
I sit and contemplate. Desires and feelings
I brought to Art: some half-seen
faces or contours, uncertain memories
of unfulfilled loves. Let me give myself to her.
She knows how to shape a Figure of Beauty.
almost imperceptibly, she complements life,
blending impressions, combining the days.
Sunday
The sun will climb higher
today, since it’s Sunday.
The breeze flows and the stack
of the shrub stirs over that hill.
They’ll all dress festive cloths
and shall keep a light heart
look at the children in the street
look at the flowers in the orchard.
Now that the bells are chiming
god must be true
the clouds are blown far away
the sky becomes immense.
Oh leave the world in its joy
and come close to me, my soul,
a joyous song I shall sing
for you: the song of death.
Manolis Aligizakis 