Days of 1909, 1910, and 1911 He was the son of a tormented, destitute sailor (from an island in the Aegean). He worked in a blacksmith’s shop. He wore old, ragged clothes. His work shoes were ripped and pitiful. His hands were stained by rust and oil. At night, after he closed the shop, if there was something he really craved, some expensive tie, a tie for Sunday, or if he had seen a beautiful shirt in a window display and yearned for it, he would sell his body for five or ten talons. I ask myself if, in ancient days Alexandria had never had a young man as handsome, a more perfect ephebe than him, who was so wasted: we know no painting or statue was made of him, thrown away in that filthy blacksmith’s shop, with heavy work and common debauchery he was quickly wasted.
“Is there anything you’d like to add?” Spear asked. “Just that something ought to be done to control these hobos.” Spear banged his gavel to quiet another outbreak of chattering. Pearson avoided looking at Torgerson. He felt the mayor’s gaze follow him when he made his way to a seat in the audience. Those eyes, Engine Fred thought. That man’s eyes are as cold as ice. The next man at the lectern said, “I am Richard Brown, counsel for the Great Northern Railway, here at the request of Mayor Peter B. Torgerson. I have a short statement, Mr. President.” “We don’t have a president, Mr. Brown,” Spear said. “I’m just the man in charge today. Go ahead, please.” “The Great Northern Railway prohibits passengers on its freight trains and trespassers in its rail yards and rights of way. Railroad detectives who apprehend violators hold them for local law enforcement agencies and file appropriate complaints. That is company policy in a nutshell. I am happy to answer your questions.” Spear looked up from the briefing paper he had begun to read, his eyes wide. “You said you are a lawyer, Mr. Brown? “By training and license, yes, sir.” “That is the shortest speech I have ever heard from a lawyer.” People in the chamber chuckled. “My question is this,” Spear said, “what does your railroad do to keep hobos off the trains in the first place? Brown appeared to be studying the air above Spear’s head. ‘’As I explained, our detectives regularly pull transients off the trains, run them out of the yards and have the police arrest them. Vagrancy convictions don’t put hobos in jail for long, and they’re soon back on the road.” Frank Stout strained himself upright in his chair. “So, what will your railroad do to help us get rid of these bums? That’s what the people of this town want to know.” “The Great Northern, sir, is not authorized to interfere in local policy or local law enforcement, nor do we wish to do so.
November Wind But now the night has come. Let us close the door and pull the curtains because it’s time for revelations. What have we accomplished in our lives? Who are we? Why you and not I? For a long time, no one has knocked on our door, and the mailman hasn’t come in a while. Ah, the November wind has blown so many letters, so many poems away. And if I’ve lost my life, it was for insignificant things: a word or a key, yesterday or a tomorrow. However, my nights are filled with the fragrance of violets because I remember so many friends who left without leaving an address, so many words without response and I think music is the grief of those who never found the time to love. Until finally nothing remains from the past but a foggy memory (When did we live?) and every time spring comes, I cry because in a while we’ll die and no one will ever remember us.
Coal When the sun was scorching all earth dwellings the voice of the coal seller was heard, a sweaty man promoting his black merchandise, his treasure trove for people’s heaters, coal made of olive tree wood, good heating coal some bought while the sun up on the horizon smiled ironically for coal seller who at the end of summer had brought the cold in people’s minds and the wine flask and the chestnuts on top of the burning stove, thoughtful villagers taking care of their winter needs justified the coal seller, who in the summertime, sweaty and tired as he was selling his black merchandise to the wise villagers concerned with the cold days and nights of winter and you said, he too had tied an anchor around his ankle like a donkey fastened onto his predestined space-time.
Manolis Aligizakis 