Nikos Engonopoulos – Poems

and when I arrive
at the last
step
of this dark
ladder
and I open
the door
of the room
I, then,
sense
that the room
was
is
big
garden
filled with music
and paintings
a room
full of bed sheets
thrown
in the garden
bed sheets
some fluttering
like flags
and like
windowpanes
and others were
thrown down
like mirrors
and others

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763734

Λεωνίδας Καζάσης, Προμήτορος νουθεσίαι

Jazz with Ella

Excerpt

Jennifer had the feeling she’d been checkmated. He had not been concerned at all about her disappearance—he only wanted to ensure she did more than her part.
“Which students?”
“David needs to develop better written skills. This is a credit course for him, and right now I can’t give him a passing grade. And then there’s Lona. Don’t know what to make of her. She wants a grade for the course, too.” His voice descended to a hush. “I really don’t consider her a serious student.” He hesitated and Jennifer remembered that she was supposed to be finding out Lona’s agenda and reporting back to Chopyk. It didn’t seem very important to her.
They had reached her room, but under no circumstances was Jennifer inviting Chopyk in. “I’ll deal with the students, Professor,” she said abruptly. “Goodnight now.”
He harrumphed by way of comment, bowed, and left her. By the time her head hit the pillow she had already forgotten how irritating he was.
She dreamed a familiar dream. She was hovering over a lake or a pond—sometimes she was in the lake—but this time she floated above it. Her fingernails had unaccountably grown extra long like those of a Chinese mandarin, and she clawed the water searching for the face that she knew would be there. The eyes that stared up at her from among the water weeds were usually familiar eyes—her little brother—and she must save him. She alone could save him. But her outsize talons snarled in the weeds and she could not scoop up the boy. Water trickled through her fingers. And when she gazed into his eyes—now she was closer, inches above the water—she saw not her brother at all, only the blue grey eyes of the attractive stranger, sinking fast.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763246

Swamped

Excerpt

Asians, every kind of European and Latin American, Africans, and
of course the original First Nations people, the victims as Eteo considered
them. The First Nations people whom the ruthless Europeans
of two centuries ago, with their rifles and guns and chicken pox and
diphtheria and polio and alcohol, almost exterminated, slowly and
methodically. The Europeans who came with their tall ships ready to
carry out whatever barbarisms suited their purposes, all while proselytizing,
yes, the Europeans who wanted to turn the First Nations
people into good Christians such as themselves only to exterminate
them tribe after tribe, only to ostracize them clan after clan, only to
enclose them at the peripheries, closely guarded by the always repressive
word or sword, whichever worked best.
Eteo kept walking, now with a fire in his chest. His steps led him
to the familiar dock at the end of 22nd Street. He reached the edge
of the dock and leaned against the framed barrier, letting his gaze
travel over the shiny water. It at least reflected a natural balance, unlike
the human world, its natural balance permeating everything, part
of the balance cosmos has invented and into which even the unbalance
of people blends and gets absorbed. His eyes encompassed the
gleam of the water and the green background on the far side of English
Bay in the university neighbourhood, where more rich Vancouverites
lived, where houses sold in the millions and one wondered
why. Who had induced such lunacy in the housing market while
thousands in East Vancouver were homeless or paying half their meagre
incomes on rent? Whose game was being played in the Lower
Mainland housing market to favor one area against the other?
Eteo let his attention dive into the shallow water under the dock
where small crabs went about their business on the sea floor and the
small perch fed on the barnacles of the dock’s piles. A few starfish
decorated the sandy floor while seaweed floated left and right like
orchestra that a conductor directed its myriad violins in this naturally
balanced world beyond human influence, a balance suddenly interrupted
by his mobile phone. Yannis was ringing him.
“Hello, John.”
“Hi, how are you?” Yannis asked

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

Wheat Ears – Selected Poems

Metaphors II

Sweet whisper of the grapevine

serene Monday twilight

treacle and cream cheese

impeccable homely blessings

granite and slate limbs of the glyph

in the endlessness of blue sky

yellow wheat fields

dry fallen pine needles, wish

for expected moist

innumerable city lights

the beggar’s empty cup

wind hitting the window shutters

bread hardened on the shelf

glaucous insubordinate sea, abundant

conches and seashells

reddish autumn leaves falling

teardrops of separation

wanderer of plains and hilltops

the darkened fate of innocence

I have been

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BKHW4B4S

Μαρία Πανούτσου, Το μπορντέλο

He Rode Tall

Excerpt

6
was 8500 dollars and the average for geldings was 7300 dollars.
Seven stallions sold for an average of 11,000 dollars, with one
four-year-old stallion going for 35,000 dollars. Top seller for the
day was a twenty-one-year-old palomino mare sold by Joel
Hooper of Willow Springs, Montana, for 75,000 dollars. The
mare is an own daughter of the legendary Doc Bar out of a Peppy
San bred mare and she went to Bud Hankins of Salt Lake City,
Utah . . .”
Did he hear that right?
Did they say 75,000 dollars?
With caffeine-fueled lightening speed that surprised even Joel,
he sprang to his feet, raced for his wallet that he left sitting on the
coffee table and took out the check that he had folded and placed
there as he spoke with Cindy Jones the day before.
“Seventy-five thousand dollars” Joel mouthed to himself. Well
it wasn’t quite 75,000 dollars. Of course, there was the five-percent
commission that had been subtracted, but any way you
counted it the old mare was a 75,000-dollar blonde.
In a stunned zombie-like daze, Joel reached for his
sweat-stained Levi’s jacket and pulled on his Stetson. Calling for
Buddy the Border Collie, Joel headed out the door and up into the
solitude and serenity of the hills. Smiling to himself as he strode
across the yard he couldn’t help but think that with all of the
money he had spent on blondes in his life, the events of yesterday
probably had at least got him a little closer to breaking even.
Breaking even on the ranch and breaking even on blondes.

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

Savages and Beasts

Excerpt

“Hey Dylan, after lunch come for your sweet,” George
addressed the old man.
Dylan agreed with a movement of his head and grabbing
a tray he showed to Anton it was time for them to pick their
serving of food.
“He’s a good man,” Dylan said while they were eating, “A
stroke of fate brought him here, like everyone else, I guess…”
“What brought you here Dylan?” Anton’s voice sounded
full of curiosity.
The old man turned his eyes in various directions, from left
to right, even above towards the ceiling before he decided to say, “I
was a fisherman once, back east, in Halifax, when my craziness told
me to go west, to come to the West Coast and go salmon fishing.”
“What happened? Did you ever do that?” Anton wondered.
“No I never made it to the coast…” his voice was interrupted
by the stern voice of the Sister Helen who was on duty
along with Father Thomas; one of them supervised the boys and
the other supervised the girls while they were eating.
“There are no seconds,” father Thomas said to a boy of
about fourteen years of age who looked very tall and skinny.
“But I’m hungry,” the youth protested.
“Stand up and pick your things,” the priest said to the
boy who got up and taking his tray was ready to start walking
towards the counter when father Thomas gave him a hard hit
with his strap. The leather strap hit the boy on the left shoulder;
he abruptly leaned a little to his left and turning toward the priest
one could see his anger on his clenched teeth and fiery eyes; he
was almost ready to hit the priest when the hand of the priest
swung again and the strap hit the arm of the youth once more.
His tray fell on the floor. Noise was heard by all the children who
turned to see what was going on.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763602

Ithaca Series # 721

Solitude

The solitude knocked at the door

to my room—number thirty-three.

The boredom entered my bed

like a big dull cloud—silently.

The sheets were blank pieces of paper.

No one was there to care about me.

I didn’t have a single person to call.

I was just a stranger in this country.

I asked my reflection in the mirror:

“Why do I need my lips and eyes

this long and beautiful hair

that nobody caresses and touches?”

ΜΟΝΑΞΙΑ

Η μοναξιά χτύπησε την πόρτα

του δωματίου μου, αριθμός 33.

Η πλήξη έπεσε στο κρεββάτι μου

σιωπηλά, σαν μεγάλο ανιαρό σύννεφο

Τα σεντόνια, άγραφτα κομμάτια χαρτί

κανείς δεν ήταν εκεί να με προσέξει.

Δεν είχα κανένα να καλέσω

ήμουν ξένος στη χώρα αυτή.

Ρώτησα το είδωλο μου στον καθρέφτη:

Γιατί να `χω χείλη και μάτια

κι αυτά τα μακριά ωραία μαλλιά

που κανείς πια δεν χαιδεύει;

Μετάφραση Μανώλη Αλυγιζάκη//translated by Manolis Aligizakis

Irma Kurti (Albania-Italy)

Βύρων Λεοντάρης, από την “Ψυχοστασία”