Shapes
Mixing complacency with self-confidence
hysteria with passion he won nothing
in his involvement with people.
Only a repetition of methods
and ultimately worn out words
that simply fooled him to believe
that he existed beyond the motionless
appearance of his shapes.
excerpt
…and ailing mother before she’d let her last breath go up in the air of
a stifling hospital room, in old wrinkled bed-sheets, white and pure
as the fire of Purgatory, cleansing, purifying, absolving all sins, and
others had to go to the front line of defence in one border, there where
the souls try to find a single justification for the lunacy that harasses
people when they firstly grab the rifle and shoot and then they think
that perhaps they should talk to those infidels on the other side of the
border, yet these were the moronic ways people did things these days
and these were all within the parameters and conditions of life in a big
country like Spain and in a big city like Madrid while this afternoon I
and my wife were sitting on the sidewalk table of this small cafe where
we had a bite and enjoyed our regular glass of beer for me and a regular
glass of red wine for my wife when I raised my eyes and stared at
the grandiose Atocha which brought to my mind that blonde woman
yesterday, on our way from Valencia, the pretty blonde woman sitting
opposite me and my wife, that pretty blonde who constantly had
her feet between mine and occasionally moved one of them against
mine, as if to tell me she was here and somehow she had to count as an
important part of my day to which I paid attention as the opportunity
allowed me and as if not to disturb the peaceful afternoon while we
were travelling at the speed of 310 kilometers an hour on the famous
high velocity AVLO train of the big RENFE Spanish train company.
Then the unexpected occurred when the ancient Minoan goddess
appeared, Ariadne incarnate, with her black curly hair falling
lower than her shoulders, with her dark skin complexion, the olive oil
skin complexion, with her black eyes and full lips which suddenly gave
me goosebumps, she appeared from the right of my wife and walking
in the most sensual way she made her way to the table just three meters
in front of me and on my line of vision towards the Atocha Train Station;
this woman of average height, well lined body, obviously a body
that had experienced all the possible erotic pleasures from the soft
and delivering to the rough and wild apexes, from the slow and long
moments enduring consummations to the fast and fiery encounters
which leave nothing but exquisite delight to every inch of a woman’s…
Close your Eyes: All Your Old Life Will Parade in front of you
For Memas Messinis
When I was passing, unsuspectedly on a gondola, someone called me.
“Hey Hellene, hey Hellene…”
He was standing behind the iron Gate of the grassy courtyard of Saint George of the Hellenes, next to the canal.
“Hello to you too,” I said, “what brings you here?”
“I’m dead,” he says.
“Well,” I said, “blessed man, you a Hellene why did you die here? Why didn’t you go to die there, in our soft, homeland soil?”
“I would love it” he answered. Besides, one night, Natalia from the Laggon, told me so, you remember her, the girl with the golden breasts. She took me aside and said: “take me away from here, I can’t live with the bastards, You, see, her mother was from Smyrna. However, the other one, the blonde and beautiful harlot kept me here, the one who worked at the pigsty of Fretseria. She would passionately sing up to the evening, the song “Even if you are far away” that sweetened my lips and broke my heart.
Positive Ascent
Big clouds in the dusk, lonely and sunlit. Amid the dark blue,
the walls seemed made of an orange gleam. A small balcony
over the sea, the ropes and the masts. We delayed with the
merchants, the copped scales. The dead were lying naked in
the valley and covered by newspapers. Two small lights shivered
on the hill. You could wait again in the olive grove and listen
to the barking dog, in front of the barbed wire and the two metal
armchairs, searching the space around, with that controlled
confusion for a star or a thorn that hurts all in the same way.
TO MY WIFE
My dear wife, I don’t have to say
how much I’ve always loved you.
If sometimes we contend and row
in turbulence and turmoil living,
it’s because I like upheaval
and long for rougher seas.
Love without some bitterness
lacks sweetness, gives no joy,
so keep your stern composure,
leave me my troubled mind,
and know that now and then
too calm a sea brings vertigo.
Dear wife, though I don’t tell you,
you know how much I love you,
your laughter but your anger too,
and if another woman turn my eye,
know that my heart and, yes, my ugliness
belong to you for ever and some more.
Capricious
Eyes bright as
capricious sun doting on children
time dodgy
when you try to stop the clock
feelings pass like clouds
while you paint your masterwork
tears hot as unplanned lock of lips
learning its pain
there are dreams in spectrum
of poetic virtues penned
dare your way onto another mountain ledge
coddle another day’s sigh
death is a pale horse
but you canter forward with glaring light
excerpt
“Bobby won’t give you a minute’s anxiety,” Emily said, “and neither
will Katie. I don’t think I can be so confident about that little monkey,
Susie.”
“Strangely enough, Mom, it’s not Susie I’d be worried about, it’s
Katie. She’s sweet and gentle but I also think she may be easily led.
We just pray she’s led in the right ways.”
Millie put her needles and unfinished sock on the coffee table in
front of her. “As far as you and Morley are concerned, she will be.” She
started to rise but sat back quickly with a hand grasping her abdomen.
Tyne sat upright, ready to go to her aunt’s aid. “Are you all right,
Auntie?”
Millie’s face had paled, but she relaxed and forced a smile that
didn’t reach her eyes. “Yes, I think so. Just a stitch in my side. I’m
fine.” She reached for the coffee table, but Tyne gently touched her
hand.
“Sit for a minute until you feel better. I’ll wash up the tea things.”
She collected their cups and plates and carried them to the kitchen.
As she ran water into the enamel sink, Tyne said a silent prayer
for her aunt. And suddenly she realized there had been something
different about Aunt Millie recently. She didn’t have her usual spark,
and it was obvious she had been losing weight.
Tyne dried the dishes and hung the tea towel over the bar on the
oven door, all the while berating herself for being unaware of changes
in her aunt. Had her nursing skills deteriorated so much that she
didn’t notice something so basic about one of her own family? Where
had her attention been? Was she so absorbed in the children’s needs
that she hadn’t looked beyond them to the senior people in her life?
Maybe it was time she returned to work to brush up on the things
that used to be second nature to her. One thing she knew – from
now on she would spend more time with Aunt Millie than she had in
recent months. And Rachael would have to step up and help with the
twins. And maybe, just maybe, that would also solve the problem of
the amount of time she spent with Lyssa.
Secrets of the Profession
As crafty as logos is
so it hides the secret of survival.
It hides between its lines
who wounded your heart
who dirtied your stars;
logos will become a false witness
that you’ll regain
the reflection of love.
It organizes your defence
and your exoneration
since you sacrificed the secret
of immortality for a momentary
meeting in heavens, and
it makes you forget your daily diet
with an imaginative verse of a poem:
ephemeral, raw.
You announce with chosen antithesis:
I’m content with momentary poetry.
Leaving behind the loss
you search for new techniques
to hymn eyes and other eyes
for as long as yours remain open, you say:
I still have work to do.
Aquarius
With the star of deluge pinned on its lapel
and having put aside
the bag of rambling
it unearthed the viscera of desert
half in the wind half in the light.
Suddenly water drops shone
on the weight of its tiredness and
filled the sun with passengers
Season
Pages from a lost revolution that, in its margins, we also wrote
our lives.
Oh, great incomprehensible season when suddenly one understands
the other.
Manolis Aligizakis 