HEAR ME OUT

excerpt

T-Shirt
Wonder do people die of love? And if “yes” do they go to hell where the devils look like you? I wish I could die this very moment. Now!
Just to meet you; to hear your voice whisper my punishment in my ear.
In fact my life is a hell without you…as it was when we were together.
And since I’ve died of love, then to hell, my love, as long as you will be there too.
I wear your t-shirt. The one you left behind when you gathered your cloths because it was unwashed. And when it was cleaned you weren’t here anymore.
It’s left behind, with so other, older t-shirts that keep me company at night, they wrap and warm up my body.
It was difficult for me to explain to the girl who ironed them that they were mine, although bigger size and she shouldn’t put them away in your drawer.
These t-shirts are my property.
Each of them is sewed together with a piece of my soul.
They the “lessons” I have paid for the life I have lived up to now.
When we used to sleep, you were my clot. I needed wear nothing else.
Now, I wear the t-shirts, I wrap myself in my comforter and sleep in my bed diagonally.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562946

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763807

Fury of the Wind

excerpt

She gripped the covers and stared at the curtains
moving in the breeze from the open window. The wailing, howling
cry continued without letup – Margaret’s laughter from her dream.
But this eerie sound was not laughter, and it was interspersed by
occasional yelps like those of a dog in anguish.
Recognition dawned suddenly. “Coyotes,” Sarah said aloud. The
sound of her own voice calmed her.
She lay back against the pillows and pulled the sheet up to her
chin. When the howling stopped she whispered derisively into the
sudden silence, “Sarah Roberts, coward.” O
Sarah next awakened to the tantalizing aroma of bacon and coffee.
When she opened her eyes she could see light streaming in through
a gap in the curtains. She lay still, wondering how to face Ben with
the news that she wouldn’t marry him. Breaking her promise was
aberrant to her. And she certainly had promised to marry him.
Otherwise, why was she here alone with him in this house, on this
barren prairie a thousand miles from anything familiar?
Finally, hunger pangs overcame the pangs of anxiety. She got up
and quickly dressed in slacks and a light blouse. She felt annoyed
with herself that she hadn’t thought to bring water into the room
the night before so that she could, at the very least, have splashed
her face and washed her hands. In the house in Tillsonburg she
used to rise early enough to bathe before her mother awoke and
required attention.
When she stepped into the kitchen she saw Ben standing at the
stove. Grease sizzled in a frying pan into which he was breaking
eggs. He looked up briefly when she said, “Good morning, Ben,”
and nodded his head in response.
She dipped water from the stove reservoir into a basin and carried
it to a wash stand in the corner of the room.
“Want some bacon and eggs?”
Sarah half turned. “Yes, please, I would. I’m very hungry this
morning.”
“No wonder,” he muttered, “after the amount you ate last night.”
She glanced at him quickly, childishly grateful that he had noticed
even this much about her. But, as she dried her face …

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073530

Twelve Narratives of the Gypsy

He’s gone, the one you, oh
Romiosini had on the throne
higher than all palaces the king
of kings higher than all kings
the Tower raised on top of
Euphrates is tumbled
the crown of Romiosini and
the reverent moon glow.
The Square Tower with
its eight corners is tumbled
Tower with embrasures
Tower full of windows
that was aimed at Babylon
that was gazing at Syria
Tower with snow that couldn’t
melt by the faraway light.
Tauris, Antitauris and Libanese
bowed in front of it and
the Caliphs of Baghdad and
Tarcea with its castles…

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D3LP7NW6

Troglodytes

VI
The gullible soft memory of the clock
like the sweetness of the Kore’s puberty
and the blue breeze’s soft caressing
recreate dreams of times bygone
with their crossroads immersed in light
when suddenly the calmness of the dream
turns into the apocalyptic enormity
of a wave engulfing singing stars
or the nebula’s untouched vulva.
Before the gullible clock dances
on the contour of a flower petal
the monk crafts an ache and
the slender palm trees sway
until the anger of the elements
emerges catapulting fireballs
of scorch out of the fiery pit.
Anger of the elements unravels its
destruction, hurling the burning curse
from the depths of the earth
to the top of the sky,
to the crocuses, snow breath or
the osprey’s clasping talons
and to this hymn’s consonance.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978186583

Tasos Livaditis – Selected Poems

Simple Words
Evening is almost the same as all others: tediousness,
the faint light, lost paths
and suddenly someone says to you, “I’m poor”, as though
giving you a great promise.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562930

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

Constantine Cavafy

Passage
Those things he shyly imagined as a student are open,
revealed to him now. And he goes around,
he stays up all night and is led astray.
And as it is (for our art) right,
his new, hot blood is enjoyed by lust.
His body is won over
by devious, erotic drunkenness; his young
limbs give in to it.
Thus, a simple young man
becomes the subject of our attention, and for a moment,
he passes through the High World of Poetry
the sensitive young man with his fresh, hot blood.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562856

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763823

Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume IV

I have my life that I want to live. Not revenge — what
another death could erase from the previous death, when
in fact it’s a violent death? What can it add to life? Time
has passed, I don’t hate anymore; have I forgotten? I
don’t know. Indeed I feel certain sympathy for
the murderess: she has passed over great crevices, wisdom
has dilated her eyes and she can see in darkness, she can
see the imperishable, the unachievable, the irreversible.
She sees me.
I too want to see father’s murder under the soothing
generality of death, to forget of him in the wholeness
of death that awaits us too. This night has taught me
the innocence of all the usurpers. We’re all usurpers
of something — of the people, the throne, of Eros or
even of death. My sister the usurper of my only life
and I of yours.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763815

Antony Fostieris – Selected Poems

Path to the Obvious
A piece of chalk slowly writes something on the blackboard
from dusk to the next dawn
the same sentence; unfortunately
twenty years in school and still uneducated,
who can read the world book syllable by syllable
image after image
aromatic sounds
lighted inscriptions in the contour of darkness
dark inscriptions on the placenta of light
fate has provided us with bad teachers
with compasses, rulers, protractors
and oh men of Athens, you know
the path to the obvious
is spread by the eyeglasses of logic. You know
what happens to the uneducated,
shoeless man.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763653

Still Waters

excerpt

calling from Emblem. So Tyne was surprised and cheered to hear
Cam’s voice.
“I’ve been trying to reach you ever since Moe called this morning,”
he said, sounding relieved. “Why didn’t you call me right away, Tyne?
Dad would have driven you to the Hat.”
“I couldn’t put him out, Cam … well, to be truthful, I never even
thought about it. I’m so used to riding the bus. But it seemed to take
forever to get here.”
“I hate to think of you making that trip alone as worried as you
must have been. How is your dad?”
Tyne repeated what the doctor had told her, her mother and Aunt
Millie only minutes before – that Jeff stood a good chance of surviving,
but that he may have partial paralysis of his right side. “He has
some movement and feeling in his leg, and his speech is slurred, but
Doctor Sanger thinks the speech will come back in time.”
“I’m glad to hear that, honey. When Moe called me, I feared the
worst. How long will you be there … or is it too early to know?”
“It is too early, Cam.”
“Where are you staying? Is there some place I can call without
bothering the hospital?”
“We’ll be with a family friend. Aunt Millie has obtained permission
for us to take it in turns staying with Dad around the clock.” She
pondered a moment. “Tell you what, Cam. I’ll call Moe tonight and
give her the phone number.”
“Good girl. We’ll talk again tomorrow. And Tyne?”
“Yes?”
There was a brief pause. Then he said clearly and firmly, “Remember
I love you.”
Before she could respond, he hung up.
Tyne stayed at her father’s bedside for a week. Because she was
used to working odd shifts, she insisted that her mother and Aunt
Millie get their normal rest at night while she stayed in the hospital
room. At the end of seven days, the doctor assured them that,
although Jeff ’s recovery and rehabilitation would probably be slow
and tedious he was, at least for the present, out of danger. Tyne,
with ambivalent feelings, returned to Calgary under the care of her…

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763068

Swamped

excerpt

Day after day, page after page, Eteocles devotes all that summer,
fall, and winter, and almost the whole of the next spring, before he
finally has the book totally transcribed. During that year, he hardly
goes out to play and only just manages to find time for his homework.
This is his last year at the elementary level, and next year he will go
to high school.
When he has completed the last page of his hand-written version
of Erotokritos, he takes all the pages he has written and proudly shows
them to his mom and dad and to Nicolas. They don’t say a single
word. What could one say in such a situation? His parents don’t even
congratulate him. Only Nicolas says “bravo” and that is all. No fanfare,
no balloons, no cheers, just a smile from his dad and a smile
from his mom. Perhaps they don’t understand the enormity of such
an accomplishment. Perhaps the value of such work escapes them,
or perhaps they are just too tired from the daily struggle to find food,
to find work, to procure the necessities, to pay the rent. Eteocles’ family
has no house of their own at that time. They left Crete almost penniless,
and the daily labours of the father provide all they have.
Eteocles’ family has never owned properties, neither olive groves
nor grapevines, like most of their relatives had, nor any other income-
producing assets. Eteocles’s father grew in an orphanage, discarded
by his mother, who conceived him when she was seventeen
years while was working as maid in a rich man’s family in the neighbouring
village. As for Eteocles’s mother, his angel, she at least had a
dowry from her father, a Cretan who knew how to look after his
daughters, but he had five of them and could only give each one a
small part of his estate. And even that bit of property Eteocles’ mother
received from her father had been taken over by an auntie, who used
the old house in which Eteocles and Nicolas were born and lived during
their childhood years as barn for her animals.
What does anyone need in this life? It takes Eteocles many years
to understand how to measure his needs and how to decide what
comes first and what comes second and what people must do to have
what they wish for— and what they may miss in the process.
What does Eteocles’s family need at this juncture of their lives?
A house, perhaps, since having your own house is considered …

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562976

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08WP3LMPX