Puzzle
Which luck and who’s the God
who tirelessly
during the nine months
in the uterus struggled
with such devotion
to complete the puzzle,
molecule by molecule,
of the three trillion
cells
when suddenly
you pop out
from the blood
crying
so, the void won’t
pull you back in.
For Maria
…My beloved
I love you more than I can say in words
I could die with you if you could ever die
yet my beloved
I couldn’t have loved you
anymore than the way I have.
We used to close the door behind us and
we’re still cold; we used to shut the windows and
we’re colder than before
and as I turned to look into your eyes
I saw the eyes of the neighbour whose four sons
were killed
and as I stretched my arm to find your hand
it was as if I stole bread from the hands of the hungry.
Theodicity
Down on Priam’s feet
Achilles cries
the old king also cries
dressed with Hector’s death.
At the Olympus
the immortals feast on topaz tables
with music and tambourines
teasing each other day and night.
But when dawn comes it will bring the new star
death. Both Troy
and Phthia will sink and
who cares for the undefeated castle.
Beta
…I baptized my life in the holy
loneliness of memory
that kept me
on the margins of logic
what’s the difference, you said,
from one step to another
when Hades, experienced,
exclusive and beyond the flesh,
holds a sickle in one hand and
a smiling ladybug on the other
and I said,
my only concern is the noise
of the heliotrope
during the sundown and
I baptized my life
in the holy shallowness
of the ephemeral and
in the depths of strange ideals
bloodied by the essence of man
thud of a shield on the daily axe
that balanced the echo of a bird’s
chirp with the resistance
of the tree branch that stirred too
I, the mortal, held up my destiny
in my two moistened palms
Manolis Aligizakis 