Aspen
How indifferent the shadows rise
defining depth of self worth
the aspen holds light
at her straight trunk and
behind an apparition
pale knight rests his head
under his left arm smiling with
the aspen’s apathy
in sentiment for spring and
subtlety of autumn sighs
princess weaves a kerchief
to garland his neck while
they ready to behead him
for courting a tall shadow
HONEY, BE TODAY
My blood is heavier in the evening,
my eyes are blurred in the still air
and the torches went out,
it’s late, the gong has fallen silent.
I’ve forgotten the air and the bread,
pagan-eyed black sun…
Honey, be today
I’m without tomorrow
the earth collapses along with the wells.
Lightness
Endless voyages purposeful
in search of perfection
eternal flame sauntering
upon lips red and promiscuous
upon blades of grass
fresh and resisting
upright upon soil drenched
in hatred and struggle
one flag forever fluttering
in air thinned by lightness
or air thick in volcano ash falling
on annulled borders
nations erased from the map
nations flying the colorless
flag of unity
listen to this tune for a while
you said touching my lips with your pointer
and I let my body relax under the spell
of your Paradisiacal touch
excerpt
A grainy monochrome archive snapshot: Nick, in tiny heptagonal smoked
glasses, poses proudly under a giant pop art sign. Pauline, his smiling fellow-
conspirator, is putting up a poster inside the sunlit shop window. Lucas
suddenly feels wildly protective towards these funny silly people—and simultaneously
enraged. All that rich energy. How could they blow it? What went
wrong?
Outside there’s a distant rumble. The picture wobbles for an instant, as if
there’s a glitch in the power supply, the sudden gust of breeze smells oddly
saline—Abbotsburton is miles from the coast—but Lucas mustn’t lose anything,
even the pontifications of the commentary.
“. . . less than a decade later was permanently hospitalised. How did Pauline’s
nightmare begin?”
His mother’s face fills the screen, against a background of bookshelves.
She’s backlit, face in shadow, but he can discern her sharp nose, firm lips, large
anxious eyes. Her chin was more cleary defined then. And she’s wearing one of
those red t-shirts with a message. She’s staring through the screen, waiting for
the right words to form. Lucas can confirm now that he was, indeed, almost
there himself, off-camera, in his little bedroom at the end of the corridor,
Uncle Larry minding him, and special new cars and trains to play with.
This has always been puzzle corner, this dazzling fragment of memory.
How old was he? He’d blundered into the beginning of the shoot, had flinched
from the heat of the lights, had walked right into the anxious squint of the
cameraman, until women with smooth voices and clipboards had steered him
back, promising sweeties, better than grown-ups’ boring chat.
No sweeties for him now. He pauses the tape for a second, kneels with his
face only inches from the curve of the screen. He has to go through with this
ritual, there’s no going back . . .
Playback. Yes, that’s her voice, bright, edgy, slightly nasal, like a soprano
sax, solo: “It’s hard to pin-point the beginning of the end . . . Nick had always
been a little obsessive, a bit impulsive, his moods swung on a big pendulum, as
it were. You had to anticipate the motion. Either I was a fairy princess or a hag
fit to die in a garbage bin. In the first few years I was mostly the do-good fairy
on the Christmas tree, as long as I stayed in the confines of that role it was
fine . . . And believe it or not, I think I wanted to please . . .”
She’s almost managing a bitter smile, as the take fades. This nuance matters
to Lucas but the presenter, off-screen, brisk as a toothpaste advert, has left the
rest of it on a cutting-room floor and sticks to the rhetoric of his script.
“Did Pauline recognise those all-important early warning signs of mental
disorder?”
Pauline leans forward into the camera. It’s confession time.
The Devil Speaks
“The angel doesn’t know anything
of his beauty
I only I
who betrayed my nature,
my first angelic nature,
may adore it now.
I, the whole of me, can fit in it
and tasting regret in the kisses
I can dream, I can fall in love
with the denied.”
VIII
What time before dawn
I dream that I reach the precipice
and I fall, fall
without my body?
All deaths are staged here
by people
the breath of leaves is heard
new birds replace yesterday’s
just to sing with
one flutter, one soul.
Where am I at that moment
the only important moment
that underlines the great adventure?
Where am I when
they take away from me
one spring every night
and I don’t touch the womb
that gives birth to
the butterfly that dries up?
Ages!
All ages are poor
and the age of eighteen
is dimply lit by the other miracle;
ages don’t taste darkness enough
and they don’t count
the value of the body
the infinite nature of the body.
And innocence, like blindness
and the old fool saints
fly a kite up in the air.
At that time when the poets
match innocence with a wolf
that moment, known only to the body
that writhes, growls
the sleepy sky turns dark
I and you too die
a thousand times
before dawn.
Water Well
Water-well springs to the foreground, the matador’s blood decorates the goring horns of the bull and another opulent song dances on the white petals of the gardenia flower: save this moment before the irresistible Hades walks your way
—You need to dig the garden, but you watch TV all day long
I drink the traditional bitter coffee while you lie in the coffin like a definition of exactly the opposite you ought to be, yet when my time arrives to fit in the width and length of the same casket, you won’t be here to drink my bitter coffee
—You remember when you went hunting and the car engine froze on you?
The hoarfrost of April is still around when the heartless Hades pierces my heart, the first swallows dance in the air, and my mother covers the Easter eggs under the kitchen towel, hiding them from my eyes
—Get up and take the garbage to the sidewalk, you lazy bum
And I beg Hades to bring you back to me, my beloved, as his sardonic laughter becomes a macabre omen, and in the form of a song, he whispers
—Since I’ve left you alone, your other half, I need to take: to balance the universe
excerpt
“Have you talked to Ibrahim?”
“Yes, I spoke to him this morning. He sends you his greetings and says he
would like to see you soon, also. He says he understands. You and my uncle
obviously go back a long way if you talk to each other in your secret code.”
Bevan laughs at his comment, “We don’t talk in code, however, you are right,
Ibrahim and I go back a long way. You have to understand, Hakim. I owe a lot to
Ibrahim; he’s been my guardian angel, having helped me a number of times over
the years and the last time was just a little too close.”
“When was the last time, Admiral?”
“Please call me Bevan. Admiral is too official and it’s not my style. Bevan is
good enough. The last time was during the war with Iran. I was there for a while
providing intelligence liaison within certain army units. Once, while traveling, I
was abducted and held in a dark place for two and a half weeks by a group of
fanatics with no specific affiliation or demands; poor guys didn’t know what they
wanted to accomplish, if anything. They kept me imprisoned until your uncle
discovered my tracks and got me out; don’t ask me how. Maybe he paid a ransom
or maybe he used other means, who knows? He never told me how he did it,
although I’ve asked him a number of times. The result is I’m alive today, thanks
to Ibrahim. There were a lot of beheadings in those days, as you probably know.”
Hakim sees another side of his uncle that he was not aware of until now. The
Admiral continues.
“He knows what I do, where I am, where I come from, and everything else
and I know a lot more than what you think you know about Ibrahim. It’s a
two-way street; he trusts me with everything and I trust him the same way, 100
percent.”
“What would you like me to do or tell him?” Hakim asks.
“Only do as he tells you, nothing else,” Bevan says, looking into the young
man’s eyes.
“That’s no problem. Am I going to see you again, Bevan, before you go?”
“No, I don’t think so; however, if you ever need me, you know how to find
me.”
“Yes, I know. By the way, perhaps it would be nice for you to come and visit
at some time after I move into my new apartment. That will be around the end of
October; better yet, I’m planning to have a housewarming party when I move in.
I’ll call you to come and have a drink with us; is that okay?”
Bevan smiles, “I’ll be very happy to do so, Hakim. Please call and let me know
when.”
excerpt
The media continued to be fascinated by him, the way an audience is
mesmerized by a performer who embarrasses himself inadvertently, on
a talk show. Ken had stepped so far outside the boundaries, had put on
a show so over the top, right down to the Inuksuit painted on the streets,
that the media haunted his studio just to see what would happen next. Ken
continued to feed them quotable lines that seemed to come effortlessly to
his lips, but that he had, in fact, been practising for months and years.
But, tidbits wouldn’t feed them forever. Eventually they would want to
stop nibbling and indulge in another meal – and the next banquet would
have to be bigger and better than the last.
He met Salvador Grimaldi for lunch again at Boccacio Restaurant, in the
Columbus Centre, and once again the architect came bounding into the
room, perfectly dressed in understated, expensive clothing, his eyes sparkling,
and his smile spreading goodwill around the room. Ken had a plan.
He told him that his next project had to be an even larger success than
the last, and described the two immense paintings he was currently working
on: one was a sixteen by sixteen foot canvas, featuring an Inukshuk set
against an enormous white cloud, that was intended for the Reichmanns.
Why the Reichmanns? Salvador asked.
“They are a very prominent family which the media and the public
have become very interested in,” Ken said. “They’re secretive and almost
impossible to approach. I’ve been studying them, and the information is
very sparse. I know they spent time in Valencia after leaving Eastern Europe,
and then they spent time in Morocco, and then from Morocco they
moved to Toronto: they started a tile business that immediately turned
into a raging success. Then, they went into high-end real estate development,
in which they have achieved even greater success. They are an
intriguing family – and just what I need. I need a Lorenzo de Medici.”
“I want to get to a place where other people cannot go. I want to sell
a painting to a man who doesn’t buy paintings and see it hung in the
foyer of the tallest building in the British Commonwealth – and have that
become a media event – even though they don’t like the media, that is
what I am after. What do you know about the Reichmanns that you feel
comfortable passing on to me? I get the idea you’re pretty close to them.”
Salvador allowed that he was close to Albert Reichmann, who preferred
to be called Mr. Albert. He had done his corporate landscaping and was
currently working on his personal property. “He’s a prince,” Salvador said.
“A merchant prince. He is a man of many talents, and I find it interesting
that you would have, instinctively, known that.’
Ken took Salvador to the studio to see the Reichmann and Yellowknife
Airport paintings, in progress. When he unlocked the door and switched
on the bank of lights, Salvador froze. The larger painting was nearing
completion while the other was only half finished.
excerpt
He couldn’t believe the noise. What was that sound? Looking
at the clock he saw it was five a.m. Usually at this time, Joel
was awoken to the serenading of his feathered friends, but this noise
was different. This was not bird calls but cow calls. Mooing! “Hell!”
Joel thought as he jumped into his jeans and raced to look out the
kitchen window. Sure enough, Buck Smith’s herd of about 300 head
of cows and calves were practically trampling each other to get at the
small stream that wandered through the meadow. These cows
weren’t just starved, they were thirsty as all get-out; his bet was that
they were out of water in their own pasture.
Jumping to the phone, he called Smith’s place. A very sleepy
sounding Tyler, Smith’s hired hand, answered the phone. He
promised to be over to help out in a hurry. Joel hadn’t said anything
about the water to Tyler. He wanted proof first. In this part
of the country, to let your stock go without water was a serious
offense against everything that a rancher stood for.
As he headed down the hall of the house, Tanya stuck her head
out of her bedroom door and asked what was happening. Joel briefly
filled her in on the details and asked her to get dressed and have the
horses ready to ride when he got back. There wasn’t much he could
do about moving the cattle out of his meadow until they were ready
to, and until he had the manpower to do it. But right now, he had
something else to do. He called for Harry who was now standing
outside of the caboose, looking at all of the commotion.
Manolis Aligizakis 