excerpt

THE CUSTOMER

“Drive…”
Costa started the engine.
“Where to?” he asked.
“Drive,” the man repeated.
The same word echoed in the small space of the car when the customer burped an out-of-this-world stench of half-digested food, alcohol, and body odour, which brought a sudden and before-its-time asphyxia. Costa started driving around the block trying to locate a police car, which was never around when needed. Then he turned towards Howe Street, as if a revelation, Costa’s mind ran to where the solution to his problem was. Surely, he turned at the first corner and started heading south on Granville Bridge while the reflections of headlights on the wet asphalt blinded him; however, that was the least of his concerns, and although half asleep and inebriated, he raised his head occasionally and peeked out of the window. Again, he burped, adding to the driver’s breathing issues. Costa lit a cigarette; the smoke was better smelling than his foul mouth, and wishing to reaffirm where they were going, he asked again:

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763866

II
An embarrassed cloud hovers
between the horizon’s arms
which forsake the colourful rainbows
and the frost of a shiver when
the young poet enters with his
avalanche of bluish creativity
attending to the dandelion’s flexing
with arms widely stretched
to the crystal stars and beyond
the young poet now enters with words
written on stone with words engraved
on paper; wisdom in the process of learning
the unconditioned young poet now enters
mesmerized by the chamomile’s yellow tear
dazzled by the chickadee’s melody
giving all his sunlit presents as always
compassion and emotions heightened
in the arms of love for the infinitesimal
for every preceding form, the poet
now enters while metal birds filled
with sulfur and brimstone like
furies from a bygone era attack
and destroy the highest ziggurats.

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Ionia
Ionia was lost forever
in 1922
Ionia, a spring and a mother.
Think of the silent deeds
that stand by us
when we become conscious of the great pain
deeds of man and the mountains
take form slowly in such a way
grievance isn’t for Greece
but for history.
How often power hidden
in the mystery of life
turns its face away from
the honest works of man
before the decay
that confronts and spreads
like the frozen and parched
gust of winter
the longing of the Greek
and the Turk’s arrogance
fade away.
Both alike
the sun and the cloud
that together sink and dissolve in the night
in the great night.
In Ionia one can meet us
you and I and
the black headscarf of the grandmother.
One can see the made of oak boat of Odysseus
the vendetta of stony Mani
and Markos Mpotsaris’ Laka-Souli
the voice that became Logos
or the playful waves
accentuated by star matter
thickening the columns of the temple.
In Ionia man tried
to create the face of god
and at last
he created his own
thoughtful face.

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