Day: August 31, 2026

Small Change

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Excerpt

Rick looked disconsolately through the second-storey classroom
window at sheets of freezing rain, the weathered fence of the Pennsylvania
Railroad coal yard and the blackened struts of the steel bridge that
shuddered ever so slightly when a train passed over it, then back at Sister
Assunta who was preaching, again, about The Immortal Soul as she paced
back and forth in front of the blackboard behind her desk, slapping the
pointer against her palm like a riding crop.
“Pagans!” she was saying, “You were all born pagans and you must
be taught to fear (her pointer hissed and snapped loudly against the desk
blotter) the power of Almighty God.”
Silence. Some of them lowered their heads to avoid her stare. But
Rick was puzzled. That kind old man who lived forever in the sky was
merciful and just. He was love itself.
Why should anyone be afraid of him?
He raised his hand. Forty-two pairs of eyes swung toward the front of the
room, afraid for him, but excited by the drama that might be about to
unfold. Sister Assunta merely glared and went on pacing, her voice hoarse
with a nearly demonic fierceness. Rick took his arm carefully out of the air.
“Daily, you neglect your immortal souls. They may already
be lost
to eternal damnation.” She stopped precisely behind her desk chair, her
florid minutely wrinkled skin drawn into a tight smile.
Rick tried to look inside himself. There wasn’t much light. After
a while he became concerned. Where was his immortal soul, anyway, why
couldn’t he find it? Then something
round and flat like a communion
wafer came into focus. It was tilted, like the head of a snare drum, and it
was so clean it glowed. He began to understand. When you did bad stuff,
soot fell on it out of the dark, then, if you confessed and said five Hail Marys,

five our fathers, and an act of contrition, an invisible power swept
it clean again. And immediately, almost automatically, his pubescent mind
reached for what he knew to be forbidden.
The kids called her The Beauty Queen. Her dad owned the bar and
grill at the corner of Monmouth and Fifth. She spent a lot of time with
her followers in the extra lot next to her house her grandparents
had made
into a large garden surrounded
by hedges, and dotted with trees. When
she came out for a walk, all the guys stopped what they were doing and
watched her tight pedal pushers, her graceful careless moves…

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763157

Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume VI

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Expectation
What are they waiting for in the morning, with the vertical,
snow-white, square, big planes, fully lit again this spring?
What does the child wait for by the window with his slaughtered
doll? Or the old man leaning on his walking stick in front of
the glass balcony door, above the noise, the city, the garbage
collector, the banks, the flower shop? That unrepentant
old man who enlarges, in the space, the hand of the woman
who spreads her laundry on the opposite terrace, which enlarges
the wet, red and white striped bed sheet so it covers two-thirds
of the city, thus trying to forget that passkey of the burglar, not
the passkey at all, the second key they presented to him
in front of the other, one for each, there by his door that still
smelled oil paint, and he didn’t consider complaining or
to ask.
In his pocket, he held tightly the bag with the nails, considering
The pictures he had to hang in the big empty house.

https://draft2digital.com/book/4278093#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763785

Tasos Livaditis – Selected Poems

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Night
The night is a door only the blind can see.
Darkness makes the animals hear better,
and he staggered not from being drunk.
But from his futile effort to climb up
to the tower we had once lost.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562930

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763831

Redemption

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Excerpt

“Yes, Mother, but I’m only going away for a while; do not forget
that.”
Maria smiled and added, “Of course, my boy, you will return.
But remember, you must write home frequently, so we can find out
how your studies are going.”
“You guys think as if I am going to forget completely where I
come from. Don’t worry yourselves with that.”
His father cut in, “Son, you are an adult, but I want you to be
very careful in the foreign country you are headed; we, your mother
and father, uncle and auntie, or friends, will not be there. There are
a lot of dangers over there, and you might get into a lot of trouble.
Have your eyes and ears open, be careful in a foreign place. You are
responsible for yourself.”
The old man’s voice became hoarse. Hermes looked at his dad
with surprise in his eyes: tears flowed freely down the old man’s
cheeks. Yet this time, George Dragakis didn’t even care to hide his
feelings from the rest of the family. Hermes went to his father and
gave him a big hug.
“Do not worry. I know where I’m going, and I know what I’m
there for. My only concern is to finish my schooling and return home
to find you all. Do not worry. Nothing will distract me from my goal.”
Hermes’s voice had so much certainty as it was heard that all those
present felt positively about his voyage.
“What about Magda, my boy?” his aunt asked.
“Magdalene and I are going to be in touch, and I hope to see her
when I come back. She told me she might even come and visit me in
Vancouver next summer. I look forward to that, really. I like this girl
a lot.”
His mother and father heard these words and felt a bit relieved,
although they’d prefer if he didn’t go away at all.
George got up to go to the bathroom, and Hermes could
hear the old man blowing his nose. Then Hermes went to the bar
and poured a drink for himself. He asked if anybody would like to
have one, but they all declined.

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

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