To the End
You say these words to other people, hide them,
they will unhang your picture
from the wall of the night school
(The one the sun shone on some spring mornings
the glass was shining, you noticed it once,
it didn’t resemble you, but you liked it)
therefore, hide them, I tell you, they will unhang it
and not even the lone nail won’t be left on the wall
freeing the space of emptiness
they will hang a different picture, someone else’s,
more subservient, more innocent, more conniving,
perhaps the picture of a man, I mean,
surely, the picture of a man more than a man.
(Excerpt)
Ken Sr. delivered all three gifts. On the morning of Ken’s birthday, the
two went to Buckingham Place and there, behind the locked and guarded
gates were the Spitfire. As they approached, the gates opened, and they were
escorted directly to the airplane. A stocky man wearing a long, dark navy
blue coat and smoking a fat cigar was waiting for them.
“Master Kirkby, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said. “I hear you would
like to see this Spitfire.” Then he lifted the young boy and placed him
on the wing. An officer helped him into the pilot’s seat.
Ken was in heaven. For a few brief moments, he was a pilot, pushing
the buttons, twisting the knobs, imagining soaring through layers of
white clouds, into an ocean of blue sky.
An Air Force officer lifted him back down to the ground and the man
with the cigar said, “I gather this is your fifth birthday. I have a present
for you.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out an American five-dollar bill.
“I should like you to have this,” he said. “I won it from a man you will hear
about. His name is President Roosevelt – so this is a very good, lucky
five-dollar bill.”
Then he patted him on the head and before turning on his heel, said,
“I have no doubt things will be interesting for you in your life, young fellow.
Good-bye.”
Purposeless Insistence
He mixes the mud; his hands tremble; he’s afraid. He doesn’t
know what to do. The house is empty. Perhaps he can present
the face of fear or the hands of fear with his hands as prototypes.
However, these hands are covered and mixed in the mud. Only
a gigantic, red eye is focused on him — doesn’t let him see
anything else. He takes the knife. Pushes it into the mud. He
stops. The mud dries, with the knife pushed in its middle,
the mud dries around his fingers, and he can’t move them. Then,
is this his statue? The old uncared-for dog sniffs the clothes
of the dead woman, hunches under the table, and starts crying.
Manolis Aligizakis 