Jazz with Ella

excerpt

Shiny new ones from Germany and Japanese ones with colourful markings. He began to wonder if he had the wrong hotel.
Just when he considered giving up, maybe returning tomorrow, he saw her coming. She was a long way off, walking, not from the direction of the Hotel Rossiya, but from the direction of Red Square. As she got closer, he could see that she was laughing and happy. His heart gave a little lurch and she approached him quickly, still smiling. Wonder of wonders, she was apologizing to him:
“Sorry I’m late. We’re not staying at this hotel after all. We were taken to the Hotel Bucharest, way over there. I walked across a bridge…”
“Da, da, da,” was all he could think of to say, nodding and smiling in return. This was superb! Recovering slightly from his daze, Sergey linked arms with her like a sweetheart and they walked around the block, while Sergey ran through his various shopping lists. She interrupted several times to tell him that she hadn’t seen such an item or there was a good supply of the other. Eventually he gave her all the foreign money, which turned out to be $45 American dollars, a few pounds sterling and some West German marks, and she disappeared into the store.
“Ech, you dope,” Sergey muttered. “You could have offered her a drink or an ice cream from the stand…”
Once more he waited, this time choosing a different street corner, next to the GUM department store. He could shop at GUM himself later. The way he calculated it, shopping for goods like vodka and brandy at the foreign currency store would save him money because everyone knew items for tourists were at least four times cheaper than in their Russian stores—that is if you could find them in the Russian stores. Also, it would give him lots of time to procure out of stock goods elsewhere. The difference would probably pay for his wanton taxi ride plus maybe an evening at the restaurant…with Lona. Guiltily, he realized that he had been in Moscow for three hours and hadn’t thought once of Nadya, his sister. He should telephone her; she had a phone installed recently and he had the new number. There was a pay phone across the way, but the receiver hung uselessly. Some one had placed a sign “Not Working” and it looked as if the sign had been there for months. There would be public telephone booths at the telegraph office in back of the hotel and they would be in good working order. He slipped over there to make his call.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562892

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

Übermensch

Impact
And since the new reality was upon us we truly
accepted it: our God was dead. Buried him yesterday
afternoon with no songs, no paeans, nor lamentations
and we felt a lot lighter. Nothing was as ticklish as
the mood of the somber day while fear, I’d say, was
hidden deep in our hearts. Sorrow reigned in the black
funeral home while beggars, outside, stretched their
hands asking for what we couldn’t spare: decency
of the new serpent who appeared without fangs,
feverish magnolia bloomed its purple flowers over
our nuptial bed and in an eyrie we filled our chalice
with courage and shipped it to the four corners of
the universe and promised never to be trapped again
in the idiocy of a system.
The Andean condor we declared heir of the flesh
the wind and the rain we proclaimed our catharsis
evoe, oh, free elements, evoe
multiply and conquer the earth someone said and
it was good

https://draft2digital.com/book/3746914#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BGFRGLVH

Antony Fostieris – Selected Poems

Humble Ode
They have no voice:
things that return to their sleep,
their eyes bloodied by time
insignificant shipwrecks in the bottom of color,
rise now in a multitude of colors.
However, I am
dead
since my birth, already dead,
talking to you:
monsters that frighten me with death
I know you
harmless house pets
you willingly become crumbs in a myth
you don’t have history, and you scold
the agony of people
and their spontaneous love.
Cheap shadows,
excrements of wild imagination
what do you seek in a causeless world?
Indifferent, homeless cowards
what do we seek
in the horrible deserts
of our vision?

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

Neo-Hellene Poets, an Anthology of Modern Greek Poets

FIRST VERSES
I like to read your letter over
and cry
and with my eyes lingering on every line
to see you
still warm, still remembering
when we said
we’d be forever one, remembering
the days
we ran with one another to where nightingales sang
seductively
the day that I remember when you said
I feel
an ache here in my heart
before the cough arrived to stop your words

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562959

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763513

The Unquiet Land

excerpt

…that rumour either—in fact Caitlin thought she would more quickly believe the other—and she was annoyed that Caitlin might be about to ridicule religion as she had ridiculed Padraig.
“No, it doesn’t make me laugh,” Caitlin said earnestly. “It happens to be true. I’m joining the Church.”
Nora turned and looked in disbelief at Caitlin. Her face showed her astonishment, but as the truth of Caitlin’s words became apparent, Nora broke into a radiant smile, and her eyes lit up with a joy such as Caitlin had never seen before.
“Oh Caitlin,” Nora cried, grasping Caitlin by the shoulders and staring into her eyes in rapture. “I can’t believe it has happened. I’ve so much longed and prayed for this day.” She leaned toward Caitlin and hugged her tightly as tears glimmered in her eyes. She straightened up, dropped her hands into the lap of her pink summer dress and asked, “When did you reach this momentous decision?”
“It’s something that developed gradually and not without a lot of heart-searching,” Caitlin said. “I think it was Joe-Joe Carney’s illness that started it.”
Nora looked serious again. “That incident with young Joe-Joe did Padraig a lot of good in the village. He needed that miracle badly. A lot of people were not at all happy about Padraig coming back among them as their priest and confessor. They remembered his background and they didn’t trust him.” Nora paused and glanced awkwardly at her hands. “You won’t be angry if I say something personal?”
“No.”
“These latest rumours of an affair between you and him are destroying all the goodwill Padraig earned from Joe-Joe’s recovery. People are saying unkind things about him again and gaining credence. You have to let it be known what’s happening, Caitlin. For Padraig’s sake.”
“Another miracle for the Father,” Caitlin said with an edge of sarcasm. “Very well, Nora, you have my permission, as not just my twin sister, but as my closest friend in this village of spite and vindictiveness, to broadcast the truth. Caitlin MacLir has accepted the One True Faith.”
“Does Daddy know?”
“I haven’t actually told him in so many words,” Caitlin replied, while a guilty shadow flittered across her face. “But he knows.”
“Or just suspects.”
“No. I believe he knows what’s going on.”

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562888

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763203

Orange

Absence
I shall keep your absence alive
during the moments
I search
for something
imaginary or real
when, in vain,
I try to locate
your absence
in the crevasse
of my mind where
it takes flesh and blood
and begs me
never to deny it

https://draft2digital.com/book/3746001#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763750

Ugga

seven
Tragedy, Comedy
the favourable celebrations
for the joy of the Soul
threat or a promise.
Human morality
or saintly punishment
the term of hubris

https://www.amazon.com/dp/192676370X

Liquid Labyrinth

Encouraging
Biztató
My grayness melted into fresh death gleaming,
churches on fire, the city smokes,
my face is still of blood steaming,
and the years have left me in the image stocks.

  • Who brought me the worldly corruption twist?
    the smell of death penetrated my wrist, –
    my days keep the fresh swearing,
    like a newborn keeps the stale air in.
    Sometimes the summer took advantage of me, winters came at me
  • its rainbows sat next to my doubts,
    you had to listen, there was a seal on my mouth, you see,
    this is how my evening tried to find the way out.
    I ran away although I was a coward
  • the landscape is silent, the dead rest in wilt,
    they left no mark on morals,
    although a wraith writhed in guilt.
    You’re closer to blood than a kiss of chastity
  • a man with a glassy face thought of a rhyme,
  • I ask for Samson’s strength for the reality,
    because this is how the immune system encouraged mine.
    Living a hermit life in the desert keeps me well,
    where the coastal cacti hug to survive,
    as the handsome heart got a spell,
    which the crystal cortex has kept alive.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763718

He Rode Tall

excerpt

He was afraid. He was afraid of hearing “no,” and that
answer rupturing the wonderful relationship and the good thing
that they have going. Yet, he felt that he needed more. More of
Cindy. He couldn’t get this wonderful woman out of his mind.
Anticipating some of the barriers, Joel already knew that getting
Lila to school would be a problem. Living in town, the elementary
school was only a short ten-minute walk from her
home. Out here, the bus ride would take nearly an hour each way
to get to the closest school at Fort Hope. And what about Cindy’s
job at the auction mart? With Great Falls being hours away it just
didn’t make sense for her to travel to work from the ranch. And
what about the loneliness? Sure, there was a few other ranch
families scattered through the hills, but there wasn’t anywhere
near the kind of active social life here that one would have in the
city. He only could think of the barriers, and for that reason, he
decided not to jeopardize the relationship by asking her to join
him on the ranch. But he also was afraid that if he didn’t step
their relationship up to the next level that sooner or later some
city guy would discover the leggy, attractive, and intelligent
blonde. And then who knew what might happen. It was in this
state of confusion that Joel lay there in his bed as Cindy dressed
for the drive home at the end of the day.
Slipping into his jeans once Cindy was ready to leave, he
walked her out to her truck and stood there in his Wranglers,
watching the taillights of her vehicle disappear into the hills
heading back to Great Falls.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562862

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

The Incidentals

Grease
He has eaten tablespoons of grease
a lifetime under the hood of cars
to change oil, lubricate, maintain
people’s cars, to earn a living,
enough to enjoy his favorite drink
at the neighborhood pub, a small local
bar, small things, small rewards,
the auto mechanic tied to a short rope
his dad once said, “Learn a trade
one day it might come to your help”
and Basil with his rachitic back still
stoops under the hood of old cars
screwing or unscrewing nuts or bolts
sighs or groans constantly heard
where fate has thrown him to live
his simple life patiently and
still recall when he started back
then, a young man optimistic about
his future, only to understand that
for some future meant subsistence
while others sleep in their satin
sheets and stretch their limbs as
if this privilege was only theirs

https://draft2digital.com/book/3745812#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763637