T-Shirt Wonder do people die of love? And if “yes” do they go to hell where the devils look like you? I wish I could die this very moment. Now! Just to meet you; to hear your voice whisper my punishment in my ear. In fact my life is a hell without you…as it was when we were together. And since I’ve died of love, then to hell, my love, as long as you will be there too. I wear your t-shirt. The one you left behind when you gathered your cloths because it was unwashed. And when it was cleaned you weren’t here anymore. It’s left behind, with so other, older t-shirts that keep me company at night, they wrap and warm up my body. It was difficult for me to explain to the girl who ironed them that they were mine, although bigger size and she shouldn’t put them away in your drawer. These t-shirts are my property. Each of them is sewed together with a piece of my soul. They the “lessons” I have paid for the life I have lived up to now. When we used to sleep, you were my clot. I needed wear nothing else. Now, I wear the t-shirts, I wrap myself in my comforter and sleep in my bed diagonally.
She gripped the covers and stared at the curtains moving in the breeze from the open window. The wailing, howling cry continued without letup – Margaret’s laughter from her dream. But this eerie sound was not laughter, and it was interspersed by occasional yelps like those of a dog in anguish. Recognition dawned suddenly. “Coyotes,” Sarah said aloud. The sound of her own voice calmed her. She lay back against the pillows and pulled the sheet up to her chin. When the howling stopped she whispered derisively into the sudden silence, “Sarah Roberts, coward.” O Sarah next awakened to the tantalizing aroma of bacon and coffee. When she opened her eyes she could see light streaming in through a gap in the curtains. She lay still, wondering how to face Ben with the news that she wouldn’t marry him. Breaking her promise was aberrant to her. And she certainly had promised to marry him. Otherwise, why was she here alone with him in this house, on this barren prairie a thousand miles from anything familiar? Finally, hunger pangs overcame the pangs of anxiety. She got up and quickly dressed in slacks and a light blouse. She felt annoyed with herself that she hadn’t thought to bring water into the room the night before so that she could, at the very least, have splashed her face and washed her hands. In the house in Tillsonburg she used to rise early enough to bathe before her mother awoke and required attention. When she stepped into the kitchen she saw Ben standing at the stove. Grease sizzled in a frying pan into which he was breaking eggs. He looked up briefly when she said, “Good morning, Ben,” and nodded his head in response. She dipped water from the stove reservoir into a basin and carried it to a wash stand in the corner of the room. “Want some bacon and eggs?” Sarah half turned. “Yes, please, I would. I’m very hungry this morning.” “No wonder,” he muttered, “after the amount you ate last night.” She glanced at him quickly, childishly grateful that he had noticed even this much about her. But, as she dried her face …
He’s gone, the one you, oh Romiosini had on the throne higher than all palaces the king of kings higher than all kings the Tower raised on top of Euphrates is tumbled the crown of Romiosini and the reverent moon glow. The Square Tower with its eight corners is tumbled Tower with embrasures Tower full of windows that was aimed at Babylon that was gazing at Syria Tower with snow that couldn’t melt by the faraway light. Tauris, Antitauris and Libanese bowed in front of it and the Caliphs of Baghdad and Tarcea with its castles…
VI The gullible soft memory of the clock like the sweetness of the Kore’s puberty and the blue breeze’s soft caressing recreate dreams of times bygone with their crossroads immersed in light when suddenly the calmness of the dream turns into the apocalyptic enormity of a wave engulfing singing stars or the nebula’s untouched vulva. Before the gullible clock dances on the contour of a flower petal the monk crafts an ache and the slender palm trees sway until the anger of the elements emerges catapulting fireballs of scorch out of the fiery pit. Anger of the elements unravels its destruction, hurling the burning curse from the depths of the earth to the top of the sky, to the crocuses, snow breath or the osprey’s clasping talons and to this hymn’s consonance.
Simple Words Evening is almost the same as all others: tediousness, the faint light, lost paths and suddenly someone says to you, “I’m poor”, as though giving you a great promise.
Passage Those things he shyly imagined as a student are open, revealed to him now. And he goes around, he stays up all night and is led astray. And as it is (for our art) right, his new, hot blood is enjoyed by lust. His body is won over by devious, erotic drunkenness; his young limbs give in to it. Thus, a simple young man becomes the subject of our attention, and for a moment, he passes through the High World of Poetry the sensitive young man with his fresh, hot blood.
I have my life that I want to live. Not revenge — what another death could erase from the previous death, when in fact it’s a violent death? What can it add to life? Time has passed, I don’t hate anymore; have I forgotten? I don’t know. Indeed I feel certain sympathy for the murderess: she has passed over great crevices, wisdom has dilated her eyes and she can see in darkness, she can see the imperishable, the unachievable, the irreversible. She sees me. I too want to see father’s murder under the soothing generality of death, to forget of him in the wholeness of death that awaits us too. This night has taught me the innocence of all the usurpers. We’re all usurpers of something — of the people, the throne, of Eros or even of death. My sister the usurper of my only life and I of yours.
Path to the Obvious A piece of chalk slowly writes something on the blackboard from dusk to the next dawn the same sentence; unfortunately twenty years in school and still uneducated, who can read the world book syllable by syllable image after image aromatic sounds lighted inscriptions in the contour of darkness dark inscriptions on the placenta of light fate has provided us with bad teachers with compasses, rulers, protractors and oh men of Athens, you know the path to the obvious is spread by the eyeglasses of logic. You know what happens to the uneducated, shoeless man.
calling from Emblem. So Tyne was surprised and cheered to hear Cam’s voice. “I’ve been trying to reach you ever since Moe called this morning,” he said, sounding relieved. “Why didn’t you call me right away, Tyne? Dad would have driven you to the Hat.” “I couldn’t put him out, Cam … well, to be truthful, I never even thought about it. I’m so used to riding the bus. But it seemed to take forever to get here.” “I hate to think of you making that trip alone as worried as you must have been. How is your dad?” Tyne repeated what the doctor had told her, her mother and Aunt Millie only minutes before – that Jeff stood a good chance of surviving, but that he may have partial paralysis of his right side. “He has some movement and feeling in his leg, and his speech is slurred, but Doctor Sanger thinks the speech will come back in time.” “I’m glad to hear that, honey. When Moe called me, I feared the worst. How long will you be there … or is it too early to know?” “It is too early, Cam.” “Where are you staying? Is there some place I can call without bothering the hospital?” “We’ll be with a family friend. Aunt Millie has obtained permission for us to take it in turns staying with Dad around the clock.” She pondered a moment. “Tell you what, Cam. I’ll call Moe tonight and give her the phone number.” “Good girl. We’ll talk again tomorrow. And Tyne?” “Yes?” There was a brief pause. Then he said clearly and firmly, “Remember I love you.” Before she could respond, he hung up. Tyne stayed at her father’s bedside for a week. Because she was used to working odd shifts, she insisted that her mother and Aunt Millie get their normal rest at night while she stayed in the hospital room. At the end of seven days, the doctor assured them that, although Jeff ’s recovery and rehabilitation would probably be slow and tedious he was, at least for the present, out of danger. Tyne, with ambivalent feelings, returned to Calgary under the care of her…
Day after day, page after page, Eteocles devotes all that summer, fall, and winter, and almost the whole of the next spring, before he finally has the book totally transcribed. During that year, he hardly goes out to play and only just manages to find time for his homework. This is his last year at the elementary level, and next year he will go to high school. When he has completed the last page of his hand-written version of Erotokritos, he takes all the pages he has written and proudly shows them to his mom and dad and to Nicolas. They don’t say a single word. What could one say in such a situation? His parents don’t even congratulate him. Only Nicolas says “bravo” and that is all. No fanfare, no balloons, no cheers, just a smile from his dad and a smile from his mom. Perhaps they don’t understand the enormity of such an accomplishment. Perhaps the value of such work escapes them, or perhaps they are just too tired from the daily struggle to find food, to find work, to procure the necessities, to pay the rent. Eteocles’ family has no house of their own at that time. They left Crete almost penniless, and the daily labours of the father provide all they have. Eteocles’ family has never owned properties, neither olive groves nor grapevines, like most of their relatives had, nor any other income- producing assets. Eteocles’s father grew in an orphanage, discarded by his mother, who conceived him when she was seventeen years while was working as maid in a rich man’s family in the neighbouring village. As for Eteocles’s mother, his angel, she at least had a dowry from her father, a Cretan who knew how to look after his daughters, but he had five of them and could only give each one a small part of his estate. And even that bit of property Eteocles’ mother received from her father had been taken over by an auntie, who used the old house in which Eteocles and Nicolas were born and lived during their childhood years as barn for her animals. What does anyone need in this life? It takes Eteocles many years to understand how to measure his needs and how to decide what comes first and what comes second and what people must do to have what they wish for— and what they may miss in the process. What does Eteocles’s family need at this juncture of their lives? A house, perhaps, since having your own house is considered …
Manolis Aligizakis 