Day: May 23, 2026

He Rode Tall

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

Tanya also decided that the palomino could use a quick bath, and
together, they led their horses to the wash rack.
Even though they were stabled at the far end of the show
grounds, it was amazing how many people were finding their way
back there to say hi, offer their words of encouragement, and take
a look at the horses. Joel never was a social animal, but even he
found himself saying “howdy” to the folks who wandered by. He
recognized a few faces from the Great Falls Show and he suspected
that they were part of the Montana contingent who had
been cheering on both him and Tanya.
After bathing their horses, the consensus was to get a bite to
eat. They had a light salad and a bowl of soup at a restaurant,
then it was time to return to the horses and start thinking about
saddling up for the evenings performance. It was already seven as
they passed the arena on their way back to the stables and could
hear the national anthem and the roar of the crowd heralding the
start of this evenings’ performance. This ought to be something,
Joel thought to himself as he nervously strolled along between
Tanya and Cindy.
As they saddled up, Joel thought the horses could tell that this
was something special. This time, the warm-up pen was much
less crowded. With only twenty horses and riders making it in to
the finals, there was lots of room to move around, but Joel didn’t
want to allow his nerves to get the better of him and start to work
his horse too hard. What was different this time was that there
were probably more people around the warm-up ring, watching
the horses and riders prepare, than there were at many horse
shows.
This evening they would be riding in the reverse order that
they finished in the preliminaries the previous day. For Joel,
being in fifteenth position meant that he would be the fifth rider
in the ring, and for Tanya, in second, she would be the nineteenth
rider. With all of the horses separated by only a few points
going into the final go-round, it really was anyone’s show. After
all, they were competing in front of a crowd of thousands…

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562862

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0980897955

Redemption

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excerpt

They travelled in silence, tired. Demetre couldn’t find a way to
take him away from his thoughts, although he surely wanted to talk
to him about Magda. But the young man was in a melancholic mood,
just like the overcast sky over them and the monotonous light rain
of Crete. The monotony that overburdened a heavy heart or a wandering
mind that only knew how to find disturbance and make it its
own, that only found imbalance and made it its own, as was Hermes’s
mind and heart this fine cloudy evening.
And it was that certain heaviness on his chest as his mind travelled
to the years he’d be faraway from this land he was born into and
raised, this land with its poor people for who Hermes had strong feelings
of understanding and empathy, these people for he felt he had
to work his best to alleviate their daily burden by making sure one
day they might carry a lighter burden and they might be able to have
a decent living comparing them to the citizens of other European
countries, since he had spent many hours studying and educating
himself with regards to the standards of living in some European
countries and he knew things could change to the better if the proper
legislature was passed and if new and modern rules were put in place,
he had many thoughts of the how and the when, yet he also knew it
was very difficult to change things people had been doing for eons,
but he also knew he had to try nonetheless because he truly believed
that when the going gets tough, the tough get going, as a familiar saying
went.
When they arrived at his parents’ house, he had in mind to
show them the graduation papers which he had brought along and
which were resting inside his small briefcase. He wanted them to feel
pride for his diploma, something many people would love to have,
yet he had this unbearable weight on his heart and he could see it
with the eyes of his soul, a soul big enough to take in the whole world,
the world with its poverty and disease, with its wars and disasters…

https://draft2digital.com/book/4172538#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763858

Marginal

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Fragrance
Under the auspices of the moonlight
shrubs and flowers come alive
enjoying the freshness of the night
away from the exhausting heat
of the sweltering high noon
and you walk barefoot
on the cool tiles of your patio
water hose in hand
with no water running
your mind travels to a myriad of things
to her body in another bed
and you get overtaken
by excruciating agony
that won’t let you relax
though walking barefoot
on the cool tiles of your patio
with the water hose in hand
creates an ambiguous answer
to the lasciviousness of the moon
and to the fragrance of the flowers

https://draft2digital.com/book/3747032#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1771715987

Kariotakis-Polydouri, The Tragic Love Story

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Party
My friends invited me to a party
I won’t turn them down. I’ll go to forget.
I’ll wear my red dress
and I’ll envy my beauty
the corpse I carry inside me
I’ll affectionately take along.
I’ll be joyous and secretive,
I, the messenger of Hades
my moribund friends won’t
get drunk though they’ll drink a lot
I’ll stand next to them, a beautiful
curse, they won’t suspect me
then they’ll ask me to sing a song
perhaps hoping for an ochre joy
though my song will be so real
that suddenly they’ll turn silent.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562951

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