Still Waters

Excerpt

His face, which a moment before had been bright and expectant,
lost its glow. “Some other night then?”
“No Cam, I’m sorry I can’t.” She hesitated only briefly. “I have a
boyfriend back home. We’re practically engaged. It wouldn’t be right
for me to date anyone else.” Feeling remorseful when she saw his hurt
look, she added quickly, “Please understand, Cam.”
His smile was gentle, if regretful. “I do understand, Tyne. And it’s
all right, really. My loss.” He held out his hand. “I’m glad we met.
Who knows, someday we may find ourselves working in the same
hospital.”
Tyne had smiled and gripped his hand firmly. “You bet, that would
be great. Goodbye, Cam.”
As she opened the door to 215 on Friday afternoon, she prayed he
would not be in the room.
Arthur Tournquist, in his bathrobe, sat in an easy chair near the
window. Tyne saw immediately that he had a visitor, but not Cam.
The man who turned to face her as she walked through the door was
her father.
“Dad,” she gasped, “what are you doing here?”
He got to his feet and crossed the room to embrace her. “Surprised
you, didn’t I, daughter?” With his arm around her, he led her to the
window and sat down again across from Arthur.
“But I don’t understand,” Tyne said, glancing from one to the other.
“It’s simple enough,” Jeffery Milligan said, “I came to see my old
friend, of course.”
“Oh,” she said, still a little bewildered. She had not realized their
friendship merited a hospital visit from a distance of a hundred and
fifty miles. “But how did you know Mr. Tournquist was ill, Dad?”
“I called him, Miss Milligan. Not to inform him I was ill, particularly,
but to tell him I’d met his lovely daughter.”
Tyne looked at her patient and was surprised to see the mischief
glinting from his eyes – eyes so much like Cam’s.
“I had some business to discuss with my old friend here,” Jeff said,
“and I thought it would be a good chance to see you, too, Tyne. Arthur
tells me you have a day off tomorrow, which works out perfectly.”
Alarm bells immediately sounded in Tyne’s head. Business to discuss?
Had her dad seriously considered Mr. Tournquist’s offer of a job
on the Herald? Would he even consider leaving Emblem and the Echo?

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

The Circle

Excerpt

Silence takes their thoughts and the surrounding area like when you stop before
the blooming hyacinth and your eyes become teary, or when you stare at the
orange sun at dusk before the sea takes him into her watery embrace, like when
the little chick chirps in the nest and its mother tries to teach it how to grasp the
worm from her beak and your eyes become teary, and you don’t know the
reason. It’s like that. The disappointment is obvious in Hakim’s face.
“When did they find my parents and what did they do with them?”
“The next day when I found out about the bombing, I ordered the search.
They found your father and mother in the rubble, and you as well. Your parents
were buried according to tradition, and I took you into my home.”
“What else happened on those days? Please tell me more about my parents,
about their property, what happened to it, how did the Americans manage to
bomb our home instead of someone else’s.”
“War, my dear boy, is a terrible thing. It brings out the worst in people. It’s
incredible to imagine what people do in times of stress, in times of fear, in times of
desperation. That’s what war does: it affects people in the worst possible way. You
see a brother killing a brother, you see friends who suddenly become the worst of
enemies, all for what, you may wonder, and there is no answer. It is unbelievable
what a person can do in the stress of war, when they don’t have means of feeding
their family, or when they are afraid for their lives, when one finds a rifle thrown to
the side of the road and takes it in his arms. At that moment, he becomes an enemy
of someone else, a killer capable of taking a life. This is why you see civil wars
erupting in every country after an event like this. The whole system is gone—the
security, the police, the courts, the justice system, all the apparatus of the country is
gone. In our case, even today after all this time, there are bombings and suicide
bombers killing people in the hotels, the plazas, even in the mosques. This is what
war creates, my dear boy, and you can only hope war won’t come your way ever
again. As far as what happened to your parents’ house, it’s still there, uninhabited,
still standing half-way; one day we have to address the issue of what to do with it.”
Hakim remembers now what he wanted to ask his uncle since yesterday.
“My uncle, how have you come to know these people, the Admiral and
Jennifer’s father, Matthew?”
Ibrahim laughs lightly.
“When you reach my age,my dear boy, you’ll understand I know a lot of people,
because I have met so many over the years; it is as simple as that. To satisfy your
curiosity I met the Admiral in Baghdad when he was a young officer at the American
Embassy before the days of the first Gulf War and Saddam Hussein. Matthew I met
yesterday, but I know he works for Bevan, who is Matthew’s boss.”
“What job do they do?”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978186524

Liquid Labyrinth

night current
éjszakai áramlat
and my loneliness is so great during the day
that I can’t stand it by the evening: Tibor Gyurkovics
the dawn the paid love has come
I just wanted it out of necessity
a frail person is still longing for love
until the fancy passing at midnight’s propensity
the new moon came with naked pleasure beam
the season called for opium in the morning
it smashed with its fist my sweetest dream
but the smell of incense made me a man with a warning
the noble night is often indifferent in hope

  • but lust also has its own rules to evoke
    and I was covered by the blood-stained robe
    garnished with painted coat of arms gaudy cloak
    an adventurous command of the night
    it flows from sad widowed instincts
  • its fashion turns into a million of hugs
    and the two-faced god of dormant feelings
    time cheated on me I was hurt by the night
  • the stars caught you red handed as mistress
    you stand in front of the elders as an accused templar
    but Friday will cleanse you from all the kisses
    my blood was wounded by the fresh night
    every hug leads to another groan
  • the evening snarled at my flesh wild
    and loved it all to the bone

Arrows

Excerpt

“My mother always worked in a household.”
“Why is it bad to ask your name?”
“You didn’t ask my name. Say the words again, and I’ll tell you
what they mean.”
The horse had begun to graze, and Tamanoa took hold of the
bridle again.
“Matircom yeunatir ueipano dauquir” I repeated slowly.
“Breasts, nipples, whore . . .” His voice trailed off as he signalled
the meaning of the last word by pointing to his crotch. “And what
was the other thing you said? Ah, yes. Guecenar onque. That means
give me your . . .” Again his voice trailed off, and he turned and
pointed to his rear end.
Heat rushed to my face. I massaged my eyes with the heels of my
hands and heard him giggle.
Torn between anger and laughter, I laughed. Benjamin, Benjamin.
He had taught me words I would never have dreamed of saying,
and I had repeated them like a parrot. No wonder we had gotten so
many looks. I was laughing so hard I removed myself and my horse
from the convoy.
“It was Benjamin,” I said. “So it’s your turn to help me. How do I
ask your name?”
“It depends. There are Indians from far away who have been
brought here to work, and we all speak different languages. But in
mine it would be atiyeseti?”
“What language is yours?”
“Cumanagoto. Carib. It comes from the eastern coast. It’s the
most common. My mother came from the region of Cumaná.”
“Are the families brought here together? As husband and wife?”
He shook his head. I looked at the Indians around me. That could
explain much of their sullenness.
In the year 1511, the Church had proclaimed the equality of men
and denounced the Spanish debauchery in La Española. But in that
same year, King Fernando El Católico had declared the branding of
cannibals. For the Spaniards, natives out of range of missionary
protection were cannibals. They were raided and sold as slaves.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522

Nikos Engonopoulos – Poems

Vulture and Guard
Mykonos
Mycenae
fungus
three
words
yet
only two
wings
like stucco
like a woman
palm
shining
in the night
like a flesh-eating
violin
and perhaps
still
like glass
drills
inside
the thin
brains
of the poets

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

Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume III

9th of November/ evening

Suddenly, winter came. It smells of rain.

Strong south winds uproot the thorny shrubs,

          blow them onto the barbed wire.

We put on our jackets, we put our hands in our pockets.

A cloud descended to the middle of the road,

took the telegraph poles aside, and talked to them.

We know, though, that whatever they talk about

the bread will remain bread and the just just.

And we don’t mind their secret talk at all.


The afternoon bus, loaded with flour, passed.

It left behind a ripped envelope and orange peels.

One by one all the exiles went out and urinated

           on the grass,

they pushed against the wind with their foreheads.

Soon after, they stood and gazed at the clouds.

Somewhere, it smelled of raisin and cicadas.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B096TLBNFK

Μάρκος Μέσκος, Τα πουλιά

Water in the Wilderness

Excerpt

Seven
Few mourners stood at the graveside when they laid Lydia Conrad to rest. Several more had been at the funeral home, but not all had opted to come to the cemetery on this hot August afternoon. Near the head of the grave, Corky stood with an arm around each of his children. Tyne had never seen him look so smart; his dark suit may be wrinkled, but he stood erect and steady.
Tyne, holding tightly to Morley’s hand, could not bear to let her eyes linger on the children. But she saw how Bobby held onto his father’s leg, and buried his face in the fabric of Corky’s trousers. Rachael stood straight, hands clasped in front of her, lips set, blue eyes boring into the casket that held her mother.
For the past two days, Rachael had neither cried nor spoken more than a few words to anyone. Her demeanor had been sullen. Yesterday when Tyne, hoping to involve her in activities around the house, asked her to fetch a jar of fruit from the basement, Rachael had leapt from her chair, eyes blazing.
“No, I don’t have to. You’re not my mommy.” She ran from the house, banging the door behind her.
Tyne had not been able to withhold the tears as pain settled around her heart.
Pastor Beecham said a final prayer over the casket,

https://www.amazon.com/dp/192676319X

Swamped

Excerpt

A dark windy night. Eteocles is about three years old, Nicolas five,
and their mother as old as the worry about how to feed her children
has made her, as old as any mother who lives in the ruins of war, a
woman whose husband is on the front line. It is a windy night, and
the gaps in the doors and windows make an apocalyptic music, as if
the inhabitants of this hovel are walking through the hallways of hell.
Eteocles remembers the scene well. They are sitting around the metal
bucket their mother has made into a heating element. She burns
wood in it, and the heat reaches out perhaps a meter all around it.
They are sitting warming themselves, listening to the wrath of the
tempest just a few meters away beyond the frames of the single door
and the courageous window to the north.
Suddenly from the deadly war of the elements outside a sudden
wind floods the room as the door opens. A man stands in the frame
gazing inside. It is their father returning from the war. He stands
there for long time, not knowing what to say, how to greet them; he
hasn’t seen them for twenty-seven long months. Their mother lets
out a cry, a cry that sounds like the name of the standing man, her
husband, the man who had gone to war when Eteocles was just a few
months old. Her husband is home at last, and she gets up and calls
him inside and walks up to him and hugs him with a fierceness that
expresses the emotional volcano boiling inside her. She hugs him for
a long time, then she pulls away, and their father kneels and calls his
sons to him. Neither of them dares approach this stranger. Eteocles
doesn’t know this man at all, while Nicolas, who was three years old
when his father left his sons, perhaps has some faint memory of him.
Neither of the two dares move toward the man in soldier’s clothes
who calls them again and again until Eteocles observes his feet making
small steps toward the open arms of their father and Nicolas follows
soon after. The soldier clings tightly to them, saying words the
two brothers only feel, the soothing words of a father who has missed
his sons, a man who had gone to war without knowing if he would
ever see them again. They feel those words, and they cuddle with the
man who has come inside their house and ignore the wind that has
entered with him and turned the room into a frozen habitat in which
the small metal bucket with the burning wood cannot warm more

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

Marginal

Armchair
The orphaned armchair designing
your body while you fathom
emptiness in the hallows of vanity
away from passion or liturgy
such as the curtain’s swaying
albeit some help from the breeze
a myth of your homecoming turns
the room’s air into pieces and shapes
of limpid alabaster yet you close
your eyes and travel to the moment
I touched your lips with my sun
your lips I touched with the sun of my youth
and the cyclamen sighed
not letting its fervid passion annul your lust
for a spring song
for the vigour and stamina of my love

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1771715987