Glorifying Hymn For the Women we Love the women we love are like pomegranates they come and find us during the night when it rains they erase our loneliness with their breasts they dive deep in our hair and decorate it like tears like gleaming shores like pomegranates the women we love are swans their parks live only in our hearts their feathers are the feathers of angels their statues are our bodies the beautiful tree lines are the same as they are on the tips of their toes erect they come near us as if swans kiss us on our eyes the women we love are lakes among their reads their fiery lips whistle our beautiful birds swim in their waters and then when they fly away
Where I Was Born one Could Lose everything In the place I was born one could lose everything. Time eats the words and from inside the words the ravaged eyes are spent even the kisses and the need to suffer.
Unprepared, yes — I can’t do it; I lack that analogy, suitable to the landscape, to the hour, to things and events — no, it’s not faint-heartedness — unprepared before the front step of the deed, totally unprepared before the goal others have set for me. Why others control our fate a little? Why they impose it on us and we accept it? How can they weave our whole year with just a few threads of our moments, usually a rough, dark weaving, thrown over us like a sack covering us from top to bottom, covering all our face and hands, in which we’ve entrusted a knife — completely unfamiliar — which lights all the around landscape, not ours — I know this, not ours. And how our fate happens to accept this, while it pulls away and observes us and our strange fate, as if foreign to us, mute, austere, uninvolved, resigned, not even with the expression of a magnanimity or stoicism, without even disappearing, without dying, we’ll remain a plaything of an alienated fate, not doubting or split in two. There she is, sleepy — with one of her eyes closed and the other dilated letting us see that she observes us and discerns our endless vibrating without approving nor disapproving it. Two different pulls correspond to each of our two legs, one distances itself more and more from the other with wide strides to the point of dismemberment; and the head is a knot that holds together the divided body while, I believe, legs are made to move one at a time, in the same rhythm, to the same direction, down to the plain, next to a bunch of grapes, up to the far away rosy horizon, transferring our body in one piece — or were we perhaps made for that great, unearthly stride over the horrible precipice, over the graves and ours? I don’t know.
Athena II Perplexed Athena gazed at the sea as if to say the balance of the world was based on it: fresh, liberal fountain blessed by the spring like the palms of the beardless poet reverently turned inwards immense sea bearing gifts to my endless wandering when I discovered seeded fields orchards with lemon trees and grapevines ready for the harvest stars gracing rosy-cheeks blue domes of temples each with different armies of words and dreamy images hopeless this misery that I couldn’t escape unless again I evoke Her spirit logistical algorithm Her divine intervention a direction I was meant to follow to the bitter end when finally in the next room they were already enjoying the opened bottle of bubbly
Spanger stepped back. “If there’s evidence to support your suspicion, we’ll decide what steps to take. The law mentions probable cause.” Torgerson’s face darkened. “I think, Mr. Police Chief, that when you take a closer look at those tracks and that wreck that killed a man, you’ll find probable cause to hold those two for a while. Now, why don’t you just have some of your men round them up?” “And charge them with what?” “Suspected criminal activity. Material witnesses to a wrongful death. Mopery. What do I care? Just get them in jail. The town’ll be a better place with them off the street.” “Mr. Mayor,” Spanger said. “We ought to discuss this with the city attorney. It could lead to a lot of legal trouble. You can’t just invent charges and lock people up.” “Oh, those two don’t strike me as jailhouse lawyers, Darwin. Don’t worry about that. Hell, one of ’em can’t even speak.” “Mr. Mayor,” Spanger said, “I won’t help you use this train wreck to make Poodie James and the hobos part of your election campaign.” Torgerson smiled and turned away from the wreck toward his police chief. His eyes are the color of dirty ice, Spanger thought. “Why, Darwin, I haven’t even decided to run again. You just go ahead and investigate. You’ll find enough to lead you to your duty. I expect you to protect the citizens of this town.” Torgerson turned and strode down the tracks toward 13th Street. Spanger watched until the mayor got into his big blue Packard and drove away. Albert Swan, the city attorney, cleared his throat and raised his fingers to smooth his tie. As he spoke, he looked past the police chief. Spanger turned to see if someone had entered the office. They were alone. “Darwin,” Swan said, “we don’t much get into criminal matters in this office. It’s mostly city business, you know.”
Tribute Forehead of silver and your blue eyes reflected beautifully as you opened the piano two fresh roses shivered in the vase like flowers your temples bloomed. Your hands fought and won against the keys that retrieved creating notes, the melody reward. We listened. And the emotions-slaves regained their freedom. Years have gone, well I don’t remember, though I believe that you had also sung unless the nightingales sang whether silent or talking your lips are fountain when my years are but tired deer. Butterflies will always flutter leaving the pollen on the hand goodbye only but a rustle, your hand as silk when you vanished; butterflies will always fly out through the window.
Euroclydon* We travel on a Roman galley convicts and merchants and legionaries the island of Pasiphae to our right and straight ahead toward the sundown the eternal city each of us with a bag of belongings we carry a gift for our fiancée hope and concern and overused hulls silk and wedding gold for the marketplace half way quite unexpectedly the tempest started the typhoid wind from the Numibia sands we tossed all our belongings into the sea we wished just to be saved but Euroclydon the great river with its opposite currents isn’t appeased by supplications and cries luckily we had amongst us one who by chance made sure we remembered of the bread
perhaps closer than people thought, same as the change Anton felt might perk up between the archons of this school and the children of the savages, a change that perhaps might lead to a dialogue between the two sides. Yet a doubt lurked deep in his heart that what he hoped for would be proven to be just that. He arrived at the school. He greeted Sister Gladys at her desk. The spectacled nun graced him with a broad smile; the nun knew that this young man was her insurance, her security, this young man would make it impossible for her lover, Father Jerome, to fool around, something her mind relished and seeing here in front of her this young man she felt as if she had to get up and hug him: to thank him for being here to protect her interest. Yet she didn’t get up, she didn’t say anything more than what she had to, and Anton walked away towards his submerged kingdom. His mind recalled the beautiful body he held in his arms yesterday and his attitude suddenly sweetened to the point that a broad smile spread on his face. “Mary, what would she be doing this early in the morning?” He thought to himself and his mind ran to her sweet lips which were whispering her morning prayer before she would get ready to go to her daily responsibilities. The day was excellent, such were her spirits, such was the attitude of the sun up in the firmament, and such was the emotion of the north wind that was blasting the old oaks and the chestnuts trees outside in the School grounds. Time passed. Anton heard the bell that announced the first recess. Kids got out of their classes; Sister Anna and Father Peter were on duty out in the yard. He walked up and taking Mary from her office they too walked outside. There they walked slowly towards the big oak on the eastern side of the yard. Father Peter and Sister Anna saw them but didn’t care to disturb them;
OR WHEN, suddenly, one turns and looks at you as if you both came to the world for this reason; you don’t talk to each other however his glance again wonders towards the unanswerable from which the holy grace was painfully given to you and other times when you mould a pitcher in your wheel or you write a word in the sand separation already stands between you two and we now know where the man who gets up to leave will finally go, only that he started before us, like the mothers who, if darkness comes, it’s because they were so tired and fell asleep for a while.
Memory Pleats Since many forgotten things lurked in the pleats of memory we all knew the meaning of the forbidden fruit and we followed a blind man as if we needed an errorless guide at the start of the twenty-first century and the man with the severed arm hid behind the robin’s song as if to decipher our thoughts we often sat by our eastern balcony to enjoy the fresh breeze of the August evening as it was obvious that we couldn’t fool the children any longer
Manolis Aligizakis 