The Next Table
He must be barely twenty-two years old.
And yet I am certain that the same number
of years ago, I enjoyed this same body.
It is not an erotic flush at all.
And it was just a little while ago that I entered the casino,
So, I didn’t have time to drink much.
I enjoyed this same body.
And if I don’t remember where, my forgetfulness means nothing.
Ah, see, now that he sits at the next table
I know every move he makes and under his clothes,
naked, I see again the limbs I loved.
Cookie
The way you held the cookie
property yours, not anyone else’s
mouth demanding candy
sweetness eyes laughing at
the craving of your appetite
wanting lips to join yours
with an erotic kiss, visceral
power undulating in your
body, which wishes you had
your candy there, kissing
your hot lips, touching
your secret contours,
making you passionate love
and you said,
once in love
forever in love
excerpt
Arrogant and stupid, that’s what I was. And being what I was, I
failed to stop the last great war. I hesitated. I waited too long.
One night I was startled awake by drums in the small hours
before dawn. Indians used hollow tree trunks that were remarkably
loud, hitting them with sticks of about the length and diameter of a
forearm. The women started a hellish racket that would have
awakened Lazarus.
I went outside and found the fires blazing and a sizable group of
women walking rhythmically about in single file, each with a hand
on the shoulder of the next in the firelight.
Some men stood while their women painted their bodies with
crushed onoto seeds mixed with ashes and adorned them with
feathers. Others were ready and gathering their weapons. There was
tension in the air. I made my way through the confusion in search of
someone who could explain what was happening.
I went to Guacaipuro’s hut and saw him standing very still at the
entrance, his gaze lost in the distance. Beside him, Baruta, painted
and feathered, waited unobtrusively. Someone tapped me on the
arm. Pariamanaco was breathing fast, a stern expression on his
boyish face.
“What’s happening?” I asked him.
“War.”
“Who? Where?” I asked.
“The city they founded.”
“Santiago de León de Caracas?”
He shrugged, curving the corners of his mouth. Those words
meant nothing to his ears.
“I must talk to your uncle.”
“He ordered to be left alone. He doesn’t want to talk. All caciques
will bring their men. They will meet at Maracapana. It is too late for
talk.”
“Maracapana?”
He shrugged. He didn’t know where that was. He had never been
more than a few miles from the confines of the village.
Gaucaipuro stood while Urquía ceremoniously placed a jaguar’s
excerpt
“For both of us, of course. And for Michael and Mother Ross.”
They had been standing in the main street. Now they began to walk slowly down the hill towards the square. Caitlin felt easier when Padraig could not look into her eyes and read the secrets there.
“Caitlin, I do not believe you can answer for your father anymore,” Padraig said. “A rift has opened between Finn MacLir and me that will be difficult to close. I was once like a son to him. I am a stranger now. And the love we used to share is all on my side.”
“Padraig, please don’t say that. Finn MacLir could never disown you. He’s not a vindictive man.”
“He’s a proud man. With a hatred of religion,” Padraig argued. “I represent religion. I preach the truth of God that Finn despises. As he denies God, he denies me. As he despises the truth of God he despises me.”
“You are taking everything much too personally, Padraig.” Caitlin felt herself becoming angry with the priest. She thought he was being unreasonable. “My father doesn’t despise you. He loves you, Padraig. In many ways he still regards you as the son he never had. You even more than Michael. There was a bond between you and my father that is still as strong as ever. He admires your achievement, Padraig. He gives you full credit for everything you have done. But he is disappointed that you chose to be a priest. You could have been a doctor, a lawyer, an accountant. You could have gone into any of a dozen different professions. But you entered the priesthood and you can’t expect a man like my father to be pleased about that.”
“I did not choose the priesthood, Caitlin,” Padraig said. “God chose me to be a priest. He has work for me to do. And I believe that part of that work is to save the soul of Finn MacLir. God sent Finn to save my life for Him. In return I must save the eternal life of Finn MacLir. God wants him, Caitlin. God is the good shepherd fretting over the loss of one sheep. He has sent me home here to bring that lost sheep to the fold.” Padraig grew excited. “That is my mission, Caitlin. To bring Finn MacLir to accept Christianity. And not Finn alone. I am hoping that you too will reaffirm your faith in God. You must, Caitlin. You cannot continue to live in darkness, in hopelessness.” A fanatic gleam shone in Padraig’s wild, dark eyes. “Could that be what is troubling you?”
They stopped again in the village square.
Caitlin realised that she was standing in Padraig’s shadow. It was a normal shadow, elongated by the lowering sun, but not monstrous, not threatening. Out of the shadow truth had come.
excerpt
The next morning the sun has risen ten feet above the horizon when Emily opens
her eyes and sees Talal standing on the balcony, listening to the birds in the trees
and shrubs in the grounds below. The sun is very bright, and she has to cover her
eyes for a while until she gets used to the brilliance. The sky is blue and clear; she
gets up and walks to the door and hugs him from behind.
“You are up, sweetie; slept okay?”
“Yes, my love, I slept well. I’m thinking of my family; we are going to visit
them soon. I wonder how they’ll look after seven years. I wonder whether they
will recognize me. I feel so much apprehension and such a strong feeling of
anticipation to see them.”
“Oh, Talal. Of course, they’ll recognize you! What a thing to say.”
He turns and hugs her; they kiss and it seems as if the birds in the shrubs and
trees sound louder than before.
“It’s so bright,” she says, cuddling in his arms like a little chick under the
wings of her mother.
“Welcome to Iraq, my love. This is the brightness we fall in love with until
there comes a time when one wishes some clouds would come and relieve us of
it. When we go to the water I assure you that that is going to be the best
experience you’ll ever have.”
“Scuba diving?”
“I can’t promise you scuba diving.However, I promise you a very pleasant day.”
Emily notices another separate building to the left and asks, “What’s that
building used for, Talal?”
“That is the maids’ quarters and perhaps the guards’.”
The villa sits on a huge portion of land located in the northern part of
Baghdad in an exclusive area, with many villa-style homes for the most affluent
of Iraq. Ibrahim and Mara have been living here for over thirty years; they built it
during the Saddam years.
Their day unfolds slowly and lazily, exactly as they feel after the long trip. All
the beautiful, different images have gradually unfolded since the previous
afternoon when they landed in Bagdhad. Emily absorbs everything deep into her
memory, knowing well these images will stay with her for the rest of her life. Yet,
something inside tells her she will come again to this country and that the next
time it will be for a longer period. And that somehow makes her feel okay; it
doesn’t upset her as it would have at the beginning of her relationship with Talal.
She is, after all, prepared to go to the end of the earth with this man, and even if at
some time they part, and a younger woman steals him from her embrace, he’ll
remain with her forever as a sweet memory, exactly as all these beautiful images
that are unfolding before her.
THE LIFT OPERATOR
The beds resembled some strange metal plants
rooted in the floor and lower, in the foundations
of the house, in the rocks and soil, even deeper,
in the center of the earth — strange plants, horrible
suckling plants: if you lie down, they suck your
blood out, your sleep and dream; they leave
behind only a diaphanous skin, a rind in the shape
of your body, yet emptiness remains in the rind
without your skeleton — a diaphanous shell that
is inflated by the breath of the following desire,
second and third time — how many times? Then
again emptiness, until, one night, the rind levitates,
takes the position of the ancient, hanged man or that
of the crystal chandelier, which in a flashlight all
its lights in the darkness, beyond exhaustion, regret,
forgiveness, emptiness, then, what was tiredness,
or failure? What is death when the chandelier shines
in the middle of the night, proving with all its
lights and with each one of them separately, the most
clear, the vaguest certainty, the most
indisputable and incomprehensible value?
Yet the beds remain empty and undone, and people
don’t have anywhere to lie down after work.
They hesitate to go out to the light again, to saunter
under the trees because light prefers washed shirts
and polished shoes, it prefers warm bread and kiss
and song and holiday. And these people
don’t have them.
III
In the rough loneliness of salinity,
amid the muscly movement of the oceans
habituated only by silence,
life was getting itself ready
like colors get ready in a beam of light.
Life in the viscera of the granite and atmosphere
life in the wounded undergarments of sleep
life in the ash, under the snow
and Death,
there in the middle, erect, manly,
with his unshaven Byzantine face,
a pause that re-connects motion
a very well-made boot that exhausts
the limits of warmth
the garment that wraps the frozen shadow of the moon
the table that life prepares for its supper
the metal at the leaf’s edge at the edge of the forest.
The wave whooshes in springs and springs,
amid wild beasts, in gatherings and
in hugging, in graves and graves, in casseroles.
One wave cries, another searches, undresses you;
the wave undresses, digs up bones of petrified light,
inverts death, widens life, wounds it,
empowers it — but what it looks for?
Where’s the wave headed? Where are we headed?
Where are we headed?
We march on.
And, oh sky, you saw the world enlarging amid
the endless recycling of life and death
you saw man growing taller
you, that saw all the tortured
all the hunted
don’t forget:
Victory stands
beyond the moans.
And this little life of ours
can’t accept death.
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Oestrus* for Death
They turned the fear of death
into the oestrus of their lives
~Andreas empiricos
I
The spastic woman lost control
and the carriage bridled in pain like an animal
that dashed out screeching wildly.
soon after
like sudden nausea
the memory of the real body
came back to her
and the unfortunate woman
restarted going on her small wheels
almost joyously.
opposite, wrapped in the rosy hues
of the gray time,
the house where Thrush was born.
Ah, but first I have to describe
the reef to which I swam:
its shape, its khaki colour
reminded me of a backpack
like those we filled with sandwiches
eons ago in our youth.
I kept on closing to the reef
helped by the waters
with their light-blue blouses
that had painted on them the cypresses
from the cemetery on the opposite shore.
The beautiful temptation had overtaken me:
to not ever return again
to close the underwater cycle
around my neck,
necklace of unimaginable value.
As I swam farther out
I slowly ripped the fabric of the sea
I kicked down loves that surfaced
I kicked them back to their weedy beds.
Then I questioned myself
if I had truly desired
those acceptable shapes
of the desirable, something
between the subjected body
and the empty talk.
eros is the only godly glance
that might fall on us
the unbelievers, I would say.
Yet, look, how the sea with the blue
eyelids arouses me now
I’m lasciviously scared
and I float on ditch water
not knowing where it takes me
because I walk on
the invisible side of lust:
death.
oestrus — strong desire (metaphorically)
Soccer Game
Six boys split into two groups
One goalie each
one defender
One on offence a half-inflated soccer ball
Two rocks on each side
signifying the goalposts
and the field among the ruins of homes
When the charge starts
Hakim makes sure to go around
The huge crater opened
by the misguided missile
defunct General Dynamics product
missed its target
by a couple of miles
It came uninvited
into Hakim’s playground
scarred deep into the earth’s face
Shares of GD soared
on unsuccessful success
of turning the boys’ soccer game
into an unexpectedly interesting affair
excerpt
Was he not getting on this very plane to Moscow looking like one of the foreign tourists and wearing a handsome leather jacket? On the other hand, what if they had tricked him into doing something illegal? The authorities could revoke all his travel privileges. Normally, he wouldn’t have any qualms about sidestepping the authorities but it was just so important that he go to Moscow right now.
All these thoughts and more passed through Sergei Ivanovich’s brain as the group from Canada traipsed slowly across the tarmac.
★
“The first thing I’m doing when we reach the hotel is to find a telegraph office and send a message to Volodya,” said Jennifer, seated behind David and Maria on the tour bus, her chin hanging over the headrest. The teacher-student wall had completely crumbled; they were her friends. She was grateful for their help.
“I thought you’d already done that,” answered David. Maria’s head was nodding, more concerned with sleep than planning. “You mean you didn’t wire him from Kazan?”
“No. You saw how Chopyk dogged us the whole time, plus I couldn’t confirm anything. What if, all of a sudden, they’d decided to take us out of the country through Kiev instead of Moscow? You know there’s no logic to the itinerary.”
“It’s always Moscow. I told you that,” David said. “We’re here for less than two days. That’s not long enough to get Volodya from Leningrad and up to speed.”
“There’s the rest of today…”
“Oh, no, not at all,” interrupted Maria suddenly, her eyes still closed. “According to Natasha we have an action-packed evening ahead.” She looked around quickly as if expecting their tour guide to hear her name. But while the group had been given a late lunch in the airport dining room, Natasha had gone on ahead to make arrangements and would meet them at the hotel. “After check-in, we’re to squeeze in dinner and some of us have tickets for the ballet. And remember when we were in Moscow last time you said that the juniors would be having a last lesson here and maybe taking a guided tour of St. Basil’s Cathedral?”
David’s grin waned. Jennifer sighed.There was another thought nagging at her.
Manolis Aligizakis 